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FUNDAMENTALS OF 
SOCIAT, PSY CHOLOGY, 





THE CENTURY SOCIAL SCIENCE SERIES 


EDITED BY 
EDWARD ALSWORTH ROSS 
University of Wisconsin 





*PRINCIPLES OF SOCIOLOGY, By Epwarp A. Ross, Univer- — 
sity of Wisconsin. 

*FIELD WORK AND SOCIAL RESEARCH, By F. Struarr 
Cuapin, University of Minnesota. 

*POVERTY AND DEPENDENCY, By Joun L. Gituin, Uni- 
versity of Wisconsin. 

*ORGANIZING THE COMMUNITY, By Bessie A. McCLena- 
HAN, School of Social Science, St. Louis, Mo. 

*EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY, By Davin SNEDDEN, Columbia 
University. 

*SOCIOLOGY FOR TEACHERS, By Davin SNEDDEN, Columbia 
University. 

*EDUCATIONAL APPLICATIONS OF SOCIOLOGY, By 
Davip SNEDDEN, Columbia University. 

*THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL THEORY, By J. P. 

, LICHTENBERGER, University of Pennsylvania. 

*FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, By Emory 
S. Bocarpus, University of Southern California. 

*OUTLINES OF SOCIOLOGY, By Epwarp A. Ross, University 
of Wisconsin. 

PRINCIPLES OF CHILD WELFARE, By Emma O. LUNDBERG 
and KATHERINE F. Lenroot, both of the United States 
Department of Labor, Children’s Bureau. 

LABOR PROBLEMS, By H. A. MILLis, University of Chicago. 

COMMUNITY PROBLEMS, By A. E. Woop, University of 
Michigan. 

AN OUTLINE OF THE THEORY OF SOCIAL EVOLU- 
TION, By F. Sruart Cuapin, University of Minnesota. 

ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION OF COM- 
MUNITY SOCIAL WORK AGENCIES, By R. J. Cot- 
BERT, Formerly at Tulane University. 

SOCIAL oC ee By G. R. Davies, University of North 
Dakota. 

CRIMINOLOGY, By Joun L. Guin, University of Wis- 
consin. 

URBAN SOCIOLOGY, By Howarp Woo tston, University of 
Washington. 

CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL THEORY, By Harry E. BARNEs, 
Smith College. 

RURAL SOCIOLOGY, By Gerorce H. Von TuNGELN, Jowa 
State College. 

PROBLEMS OF THE FAMILY, By WILLysTINE GoopsELL, — 
Columbia University. 

SEX SOCIOLOGY, By Epwarp A. Ross, University of Wis- 
consin, and JANE I. NEWELL, Wellesley College. 





* Published. 









x KRY OF PH hits 
The Century Soctal Sctence Series (© é 
gets JUN 


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FUNDAMENTALS 


OF 


SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


BY 
EMORY S. BOGARDUS 


PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY 
OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 





NEW YORK AND LONDON 
THE CENTURY CO, 


Copyright, 1924, by 
THe CENTURY Co. 


2108 


Printed in U. S. A. 


DEDICATED TO 
EDWARD ALSWORTH ROSS 


DISTINGUISHED EXPLORER AND PIONEER 
IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/fundamentalsofso00boga_0 


PREFACE 


Social psychology is more than an application of the psychology of the 
individual to collective behavior. It is more than an imitation theory, an 
instinct theory, a herd instinct theory, or a conflict theory of social life. 
It is developing its own approach, concepts, and laws. It treats of the 
processes of intersocial stimulation and their products in the form of social 
attitudes and values. It obtains its data by analyzing personal experiences. 

The present work originated fourteen years ago during which time the 
writer has been giving increasing attention tc the study and teaching of 
the subject. It is impossible to mention al) the persons to whom I am 
directly or indirectly indebted in the preparation of this volume. Chief 
among these is Edward Alsworth Ross, who nas been an unfailing stimulus 
and who has made numerous helpful suggestions. 


Emory S. Bocarpus. 
University of Southern California. 










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HISTORICAL APPROACH 


For centuries there has been much unorganized thinking about the 
nature of intersocial stimulation. Since the beginning of human society 
every person has been vitally and continually concerned in the responses 
which his own behavior would produce in the behavior of his fellows, 
and repeatedly he has cursed his luck for having said or done “the wrong 
thing,” that is, the thing which has caused his fellows to respond con- 
trarily to his wishes. More fundamental still, without his always realizing 
it, man’s behavior everywhere has been largely determined by the stimuli 
which the behavior of his fellows afforded. 

Moreover, in every social group there have undoubtedly been some 
who have seriously reflected upon the nature of this interstimulation and 
its results, in order, if possible, to discover rules or procedures by which 
to control the conduct of others. Such thinking gives social psychology 
a claim to be considered as one of the oldest of human studies, although 
its scientific development is only recent. 

In the primitive tribe the phenomena of leadership and group control 
attracted the attention of the more thoughtful. The tribal chieftain made 
rough calculations concerning the probable actions of his subjects under 
flush of victory or the gloom of defeat. The Australian Blackfellow who 
put a taboo upon young cocoanuts in order to protect them and to have a 
supply of them on a given feast day possessed a rudimentary knowledge 
of group control. The African belle who wore thirty pounds of copper 
ornaments upon her ankles in order to eclipse a rival who wore only 
twenty-five pounds knew something of the psychology of fashion. 

Among the Greeks we find evidences of organized thinking concerning 
psychical processes. Plato, for example, made many observations of a 
social psychological nature. If one person accumulates wealth, others 
will imitate, and as a result, all the citizens will become lovers of money. 
He stood for custom imitation and opposed fashion imitation. Customs 
represent the ripe fruitage of the centuries.” The chief advantage of laws 
is not that they make men honest, but that they cause them to act uni- 

* Republic, tr. by Jowett, 550 D. E.; cf. Laws, tr. by Jowett, 742, 7o1. 


* Laws, 722. 
ix 


x HISTORICAL APPROACH 





formly, and hence, in a socially dependable way.* Plato pointed out the 
parallelism between a just society and a just individual, and asserted that 
the conduct of individuals in the mass is predictable, thus forecasting the 
study of behavior uniformities. 

According to Aristotle man is a political animal, that is to say, man 
lives by necessity in association.* © Social organization is not as important 
as social attitudes. All the people of a given state must become social- 
minded before there can be a perfect government. The “social mean” 
plays a leading part in Aristotle’s analysis of human interactions. The 
existence of only two classes of society—the very rich and the very poor— 
spells social disaster. Society 1s safe only when the middle class is in 
control. Aristotle analyzed the psychological weakness of communism 
when he wrote: “For that which is common to the greatest number has 
the least care bestowed upon it.’”® In the mind of this renowned phi- 
losopher, social process and development are uppermost. 

In the beginning of the modern period, Thomas More revealed a keen 
understanding of social interaction. In Utopia he provided for fore- 
stalling fashion imitation. Laws in Utopia are few because the people 
have become unselfish masters of social interactions; in consequence few 
regulations are necessary.”? Socialized habits make social legislation 
superfluous, and subjective personal control lessens the need for objective 
social control. In not allowing the Utopians to vote immediately upon 
new issues, More purposely guarded them against the dangers of crowd 
emotion. He stressed freedom of opinion, the group value of sympathy, 
and protested against administering punishment without first attempting 
to understand the personal causes for offenses. 

Sympathy was analyzed at length by David Hume. He held that the 
sentiment of sympathy develops into intelligent codperation and that 
rational control of social processes is feasible. Against the influences of 
environment upon man, Hume placed imitativeness, declaring that group 
uniformities are due more largely to imitative processes than to like 
physical environments. It is by ideas such as these that Hume refuted the 
prevailing social contract concept of society and became the father of 
social psychology. 

It was Lester F. Ward, however, who was the first to direct attention 
to the importance of the psychic factors in social evolution. In the 


* Statesman, tr. by Jowett, see books IX-XII. 

* Politics, tr. by Jowett, I, 2. 

* Ibid., II, 3. 

* Utopia, Bohn’s Libraries, pp. 148, 149. 

"Thid.. p. 93. 

*See Dynamic Sociology, 2 Vols. (Appleton, 1883). 


HISTORICAL APPROACH x1 


development of civilization, the psychic forces have gradually come to 
the fore, and tend to assume control over the physical and_ biological 
processes. The education and training of all individuals will enable them 
to direct intersocial stimulation to the development of all and of each. 
Although his psychology was faulty, Ward demonstrated an indispensable 
need for social psychology. 

The first scientific observer to collect and classify the data of inter- 
social stimulation in a specific field was Gabriel Tarde.® With him, about 
1890, the scientific study of social psychological data begins. At once the 
field was broadened out by the researches of such investigators as Ross, 
Giddings, Cooley, Howard, Ellwood, McDougall, Wallas, and other well- 
known writers, whose works will be referred to in the following chapters 
and to whom all students of societary life are inestimably indebted. To 
some of these writers social psychology is chiefly a study of the social 
side of human nature; to others, it treats of suggestion and imitation; to 
still others, of group conflicts and control; it is still without a common 
agreement as to its territory. 

The new science is, however, developing its own methods and speaking 
from its own vantage ground. Its sector of the field of the social sciences 
is that important territory which connects psychology and sociology, which 
is largely uncultivated, but which in certain places is tilled by the psycholo- 
gists and elsewhere by the sociologists. Instead, however, of permitting 
its advance to be directed from either psychological or sociological head- 
quarters, social psychology is developing its own technique, but following, 
of course, the rules of scientific investigation and social science procedure. 

Social psychology is one of the youngest of the special social sciences. 
In the United States the subject did not begin to attract widespread 
attention until 1908. When Roosevelt became president there was no 
book in America that bore the title “Social Psychology’; and only one 
that printed the term in its sub-title. Although the subject received 
recognition in Europe earlier than in the United States, its systematic 
development has proceeded chiefly in the last decade in our country. It 
is winning an increasingly important place in the curricula of our colleges, 
universities, and normal schools. The quintessence of social psychology is 
found in the study of intersocial stimulation and response and of the 
resultant social attitudes, values, and personalities—this is the important, 
and attractive field the student of human life is invited to explore, and 
in which perchance he may ultimately contribute new data and methods 
of research, 


*See Les Lois de limitation (Paris, 1890). 








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CONTENTS 


PART ONE 
INTRODUCTION 
CHAPTER PAGE 
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PML IOMEVUIRTEOULOINATURE 5. 3s. 'sio: oil tte, | Mattecelnnnann Nam sgt 027 5 


PART TWO 


INTERSTIMULATION 
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xiii 


CONTENTS 





XIV 
PART THREE 
GROUPS AND INTERSTIMULATION 
CHAPTER PAGE 
XXI. Socrat Groups 241 
XXII. Crowns anp Moss 254 
XXIII. AssEMBLIES AND PUBLICS 268 
XXIV. OccuPATIONAL GROUPS . 279 
XXV. Group OPINION 288 
XXVI. Group LoyALTIES 302 
XXVII. Group ConFLicts 313 
XXVIII. Group MoRALE 330 
XXIX. Group CoNTROL 339 
XXX. Group Controt AGENCIES . 349 
awl. ‘Group. ConTro. 'PRonuGise ase eas) 6 ek ese 359 
PART FOUR 
LEADERSHIP AND INTERSTIMULATION 
XXXII. ORIGINALITY 371 
XXXII. Genius anp TALENT 382 
XXXIV. INVENTION AND DISCOVERY . 3904 
XXXV. Mentat LEADERSHIP 409 
XXXVI. Socrat LEADERSHIP 418 
XXXVII. Prestice LEADERSHIP 428 
XXXVIII. Democratic LEADERSHIP 435 
XXXIX. LEADERSHIP AND SocIAL CHANGE 447 
XL. LEADERSHIP AND WorLpD PRoGRESS . 462 


INDEX 7 e e e . e © . . . ° + e . 


473 


PART ONE 
INTRODUCTION 


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FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL 
PSYCHOLOGY 


CHAPTER I 
HUMAN NATURE 


Homes beings begin life as simple organic units and develop into 
personalities with complex spiritual qualities. From a helpless be- 
ginning they grow into spiritual dynamos, capable of mastery of them- 
selves and of their social environment. The process is largely one of 
intersocial stimulation and response, and the product is human personali- 
ties with their attitudes and values of life. According to this analysis 
social psychology studies intersocial stimulation! and response, social 
attitudes, values, and personalities. It begins with individual human 
beings and original human nature and traces their growth through inter- 
social stimulation into persons? with socialized attitudes. 

Out of intersocial stimulation personal nature slowly and fitfully evolves. 
That it has a physical basis, akin to that of animal nature, no one can 
well disprove.? It is in part a neuro-muscular system, vastly complex and 
not very well understood; it is also psychical and social. It is at once a 
product and a cause, a resultant and a generator. 

When Dr. William Healy refers to the individual “as the product of 
conditions and forces which have been actively forming him from the 
earliest moment of unicellular life,”’* he is emphasizing a part of the truth, 
the product phase to the exclusion of the ascendancy phase.* Dr. Healy’s 
experiences with delinquents and persons who are “victims of circum- 
stance” have led him perhaps to overlook somewhat the inventor, the 
leader, or even normal persons who modify or change material and 


*Cf. the statement made by Park and Burgess, Introduction to the Science of 
Sociology (University of Chicago Press, 1921), p. 55, that “the person is an indi- 
vidual who has status. We come into the world as individuals. We acquire status 
and become persons. Status means position in society.” 

7Cf. Stewart Paton, Human Behavior (Scribners, 1912), Ch. I. 

* The Individual Delinquent (Little, Brown: 1915), p. 16. 

“Cf. E. A. Ross’ term, “individual ascendancy,” Social Control (Macmillan, 1901), 
p. vii; and Social Psychology (Macmillan, 1908), p. 4. 


3 


4 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





spiritual environments. Social psychology deals primarily with normal 
persons as both products and initiators in the intersocial stimulation 
process. 


ORIGINAL HUMAN NATURE 


Human nature originates inthe psycho-physical patterns that develop in 
the unicellular stage of human life. Environment, however, begins to 
operate significantly in pre-natal life. An under-nourished, anaemic, or ' 
chronically fatigued condition of the mother during the pre-natal months — 
undoubtedly has serious effects upon the physical nature and psychical 
quality of the offspring. A mother suffering from malnutrition cannot 
give the unborn child a physical constitution that will ordinarily develop 
into a sturdy physique. Alcoholism on the part of the mother is believed 
to have serious effects on offspring, for the circulation of alcoholic poisons 
through the mother’s system naturally reaches the unborn babe. Toxins 
from venereal disease also circulate through the blood and may permanently 
distort the unborn child’s mental and psychical development. A sudden, 
violent neural shock to the mother, such as the unexpected death of a loved 
one, or the experiencing of great fear, an automobile accident, or other 
disaster, may cause disturbing results.® 

At birth, the environmental contacts are greatly multiplied. The physical 
changes are extraordinary and the processes of bodily activity are numer- 
ous and varied. The earliest years are devoted to making physical and 
psychical co-ordinations, but therewith the psycho-social development 
proceeds apace. The child is born into dynamic social environments with 
their countless stimuli; the result is the modification and development of 
the original human nature traits. Communication, suggestion, imitation, 
and other processes operate, and personality takes definite form. 

Before tracing further the development of personality by means of 
intersocial stimulation processes, let us examine the inherited equipment. 
In other words, what is original human nature? 

At the beginning of life the human organism is endowed with tropistic 
and reflex characteristics as are the lower animal forms. It has mechan- 
isms for responding to environmental stimuli in peculiar ways. Some of 
the mechanisms produce reflex and simple responses, while others are 
far more complex, being the bases of impulsive, habitual, and attentive 
activities. These mechanisms consist of a structural equipment, which in 


nil FAD Bernard, Publications of the American Sociological Society, XV1:93 f. 

“There is little, if any, evidence, however, that indicates that an impinging fear 
Re f grave shock experienced by the mother produces “birthmarks” on her unborn 
child, 


HUMAN NATURE 5 


the case of many ordinary human reactions, includes sense organs, affector 
neurones, synapses, higher neurone centers, muscles, and glands; or re- 
ceptors, conductors, and effectors. The activities of these factors fall into 
established types with a corresponding mechanistic nature. A specific 
stimulus creates vibrations in the sense organ, which are transmitted along 
the afferent neural system to the central neural system whence an impulse 
is sent out over efferent neurones to muscles or glands or both, and if 
to the latter then with emotional accompaniments. Every time the given 
stimulus operates it tends to discharge the whole system of stimuli and 
responses in the same way, and an organized habit may result. 

Every person inherits certain ready-made coordinations, such as those 
represented by the beating of the heart, respiration, digestion, as well as 
other neuro-muscular mechanisms, more complicated in type, such as the 
so-called “instincts” with expressions that are partly innate and partly 
habitual. Simple and complex impulses alike are inherited ways of meeting 
common problems and conditions of life. Their origins are obscure but 
there can be no doubt about their transmission biologically from parent to 
offspring. 

Whenever the organism receives a certain stimulus, a neuro-muscular 
mechanism for meeting a given type of situation is set off automatically. 
These standardized types of response energize the whole individual. An 
impulse is not a specific phase of personality, but the whole personality 
expressing itself in a specific way. These organized impulsive types of 
activity are pre-determined ways of meeting recurring situations. They 
serve the individual well until he faces a new problem and needs a new 
type of response. 

Intersocial stimulation implies receptors or organs for receiving stimuli 
and conducting them into the neural system where responses are inaug- 
urated. The development of receptors in the human organism makes 
possible seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting, and the discrimination 
of cold, heat, pain, and kinesthetic stimuli. Then, there are inherited 
organic stimuli, as evidenced by the fact that when the individual organism 
experiences hunger-stimuli it grows restless and seeks food; when it be- 
comes tired, it falls asleep ; or when it is repeatedly irritated by perplexing 
stimuli, it grows nervous and perhaps develops insomnia, or otherwise 
suffers a loss in efficiency. 

Moreover there are internal stimuli popularly known as motives, 
intentions, aspirations. A motive is explained by Woodworth’ in objective 


"Psychology (Holt, 1921), p. 84f.; also Dynamic Psychology (Columbia Univ. 
Press, 1918). 


6 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





terms. It originates in a stimulus that has not promptly achieved its goal, 
and which thus persists in organic activity. The internal neuro- 
muscular mechanisms may be set off by stimuli from the receptors and 
thus constitute the technique of motive. The discharge of one neural 
mechanism, for example, of a receptor, may act as an internal stimulus to 
discharge another internal neural mechanism, and thus internal activities 
may multiply and even be organized into standard types of reaction or 
response. In writing this treatise, for example, I find that upon interrup- . 
tion it is best to make a notation in pencil of the next idea which is to be 
developed, or that otherwise after an interim the “next idea” which 
seemed so pertinent at the time the interruption occurred may not ,be 
recalled at all or only with difficulty. In other words, as I write, one 
thought leads to another, and so on. There seems to be a neural process, 
whereby the discharge of one thought-mechanism acts as a stimulus to 
create or at least to release another thought-mechanism. 

In addition to stimuli, receptors, simple neural mechanisms, there is the 
central neural system and the sympathetic neural system. The former 
refers to the brain and the spinal cord; through one or both of these every 
nerve stimulus must pass before reaching its motor completion. Here 
are located the centers of what are called consciousness and sub-conscious- 
ness. The latter, the sympathetic neural system, carries motor currents as 
distinguished from sensory currents, to the internal organs of the body 
and the glands. 

The neural discharges of the central neural system go out to the effec- 
tors, namely, the striped muscles which produce the visible evidences of 
bodily motion and activity. Then there are the unstriped muscles by 
which the sympathetic neural system regulates the actions of the internal 
organs, and also the glands which function in digestion, secretion, and 
excretion. There are duct glands, such as the salivary glands, the digestive 
glands of the stomach, the pancreas, the liver, the kidneys, and excretory 
skin glands. There are also the ductless or endocrine glands which in 
recent years have received special attention, because of their relation to the 
emotional tone of the human organism. The three leading endocrine 
glands are the thyroid, the suprarenal, and the pituitary.8 The striped 
muscles, the unstriped or smooth muscles, and the duct and ductless glands 
therefore constitute the effector system. 

Impulses to activity are the most common traits of human nature. In 
the main they are not highly developed at first, but are aroused by many 


* The student should consult standard authorities in physiology for detailed infor- 
mation concerning the role of the endocrines in human activity. 


HUMAN NATURE > 


different kinds of stimuli. As a person’s experiences multiply they 
become organized into definite habits and attitudes. There are also in- 
herited impulses which are specialized although largely potential at the time 
of a child’s birth. They are best known as aptitudes, being general, as 
the aptitude for speech which is inherited by all, and also being specific, as 
the aptitude for music, for mathematics, or for languages, which are 
possessed in varying degrees by some individuals, but scarcely at all by 
many. 

Native impulses, unorganized and organized alike, may result in pro- 
moting the welfare (1) of the individual organism, or (2) of social 
groups. In the vast majority of instances these ends are not sought con- 
sciously, even by human beings. The chick which hears the warning 
cluck and runs to the mother hen does not stop to inform itself that it 
must hasten to cover for self-preservation. The warning cry was the 
stimulus which released the chick’s innate fleeing mechanism, and ener- 
gized the whole chick to run to cover. Chicks that do not respond to 
warning calls soon lose their lives; those that respond promptly will prob- 
ably be saved, and become the progenitors of a line of chicks which are 
characterized by this type of instinctive behavior. 

The prevalence of large families a century ago in the United States, or 
today among the poorer classes, does not mean at all that the parents 
in question were or are motivated by definite plans to build up the race 
numerically. Most self-sacrificing, altruistic deeds are performed without 
thought of benefitting the race, for example, the countless acts of maternal 
self-sacrifice in behalf of children. It is most fortunate, in fact, that 
socialized conduct can thus become standardized, habitual, and sub-atten- 
tive. 

The assertion that inherited tendencies are the essential springs or 
motive forces of feeling, thought, and action, whether individual or collect- 
ive, has probably been overstressed by William McDougall.2 The role 
played by habituation has clearly been neglected.*° Furthermore, Mc- 
Dougall has isolated individual “instincts” too definitely. An “instinct” is 
perhaps more of a result than a cause—a result in which the purely in- 
herited element is largely submerged in habit. The term, “instinct,” has 
developed a cluster of meanings which imply too much, and hence it is 


® An Introduction to Social Psychology (Luce, 1914), Ch. II. 

To be discussed in Chapter IV. 

“The treatment of “instincts” by William McDougall has called forth various 
criticisms, such as K. Dunlap’s “Are there any instincts?” (Jour. of Abnormal Psy- 
chology, Dec., 1919), and Ellsworth Faris’ “Are instincts data or hypotheses?” 
(Amer. Jour. of Sociology, XX VII: 184-196). 


g FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





necessary to use instead the idea of innate potential impulses. These are 
the core of original human nature and the elements from which person- 
ality develops. They determine the possible effects of social interstimula- 
tion; when they become organized into habitual reactions they are scarcely 
recognizable. 

Human interstimulation plays continually upon original human nature, 
modifying it beyond recognition and organizing it into social patterns or 
institutions.’ It is the modification of original human nature by social 
stimulation that transforms it into the personality traits that we know.’* 
Although the beaver needs no practice in order to cut down a tree and the 
first nest of a robin is as well made as the last, the human being has no 
such highly organized equipment. His relatively long period of imma- 
turity, beginning with a period of helplessness when all his psychic equip- 
ment cannot keep him alive for more than a few days or hours, is the 
organization stage of his impulses and other innate characteristics. As a 
result of this organization period of several years’ duration, the human in- 
dividual does not require the instinct equipment of higher animals. In- 
stead, his native impulses are transformed into habits, socially and per- 
sonally determined. Thus, he escapes an instinct equipment with its pre- 
determinism. He possesses, on the other hand, great flexibility, and limit- 
less opportunities for personal development. 


PRINCIPLES 


1. Intersocial stimulation and response together with the resultant social 
attitudes of personality represent the main field of social psy- 
chology. 

. Original human nature is composed largely of impulses and their 
mechanisms, 

3. A stimulus may be either objective or subjective (motive); in the 

latter case it may have definite environmental origins. 

4. The “instinct” theory is over-drawn; in its place the habit-organization 
of innate impulses theory possesses greater reasonableness. 

5. The long period of human infancy makes possible, through the 

processes of intersocial stimulation, far-reaching modifications of 
human nature, 


dS 


See the argument by C. A. Ellwood that human nature is the most modifiable 
thing in the world, in his article, “The Modifiability of Human Nature and Human 
ae Jour. of Applied Sociology, VII :229-237. 

id., p. 232. 


HUMAN NATURE 9 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. Illustrate intersocial stimulation. 

. What is original human nature? 

. Distinguish between an individual and a person. 

. Describe the operation of a neuro-muscular mechanism. 
What is an innate impulse? 

What is a motive? 

What is an “instinct?” 

. Why is the “instinct” theory weak? 

. What is a reasonable substitute for it? 

. Explain: Human nature is “one of the most modifiable things we 
know.” 


OO CON ANDW DH 


ol 


PROBLEMS 


1. How is human nature different from animal nature? 
2. In what sense is human nature mechanistic? 
3. In what particulars is the term, mechanistic, as applied to human 
nature misleading ? 
4. In what ways would a full equipment of “instincts” be a .serious 
human handicap? 
. Give a new illustration of the modificability of human nature. 
. As a student of social psychology, what constitutes your laboratory ? 
. What is your chief aim in studying social psychology? 
. Would you expect that the study of social psychology will make you 
more dependent on others or more independent of others? 
g. How far would you have developed toward your present mental level 
without intersocial stimulation? 
10. What is the most recent illustration of your participation in intersocial 
stimulation ? 


ON OU 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Cooley, C. H., Human Nature and the Social Order (Scribners, 1922), 
Introduction, Ch. I. 

Dewey, John, Human Nature and Conduct (Holt, 1922), Part II. 

Edman, Irwin, Human Traits (Houghton Mifflin, 1920), Chs. I, II. 

Ellwood, C. A., An Introduction to Social Psychology (Appleton, 1917), 
Ch itl: 





IO FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


Gault, R. H., Social Psychology (Holt, 1923), Chs. I, II. 

Ginsberg, Morris, The Psychology of Society (Dutton, 1921), Chs. I, II. 

Hayes, E. C., Introduction to the Study of Sociology (Appleton, 1915). 

Hocking, W. E., Human Nature and its Re-making (Yale University 
Press, 1918), Chs. VII, X. 

McDougall, William, An Introduction to Social Psychology (Luce, 1914), 
Ch. ITI. 

“The Use and Abuse of Instinct in Social Psychology”, Jour. of 
Abnormal Psychology and Social Psychology, XV1: 285-333. 

Park and Burgess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology (Univ. of 
Chicago Press, 1921), Ch. II. 

Parmelee, M., The Science of Human Behavior (Macmillan, 1913), Ch. 
XITl. 

Paton, Stewart, Human Behavior (Scribners, 1922), Chs. I, VIII. 

Tarde, Gabriel, Etudes de psychologie sociale (Paris, 1897), pp. 279-86. 

Thorndike, E. L., The Original Nature of Man (Teachers College, Colum- 
bia Univ., 1920), Ch. XI. 

Wallas, Graham, Human Nature in Politics (Houghton Mifflin, 1906), 
fart 1, Chal: 

The Great Society (Macmillan, 1914), Chs. I, II. 

Williams, J. M., Principles of Social Psychology (Knopf, 1922), Ch. I. 








CHAPTER II 
ABPECIIV E NA RU ae 


UMAN nature has many important phases, such as the affective and 
the cognitive, which are often complementary. Affective nature, the 
theme of this chapter, includes the feelings, emotions, sentiments, desires. 


FEELING REACTIONS 


Human nature possesses a tonal quality, somewhat after the fashion per- 
haps of a musical instrument, only far more complex and significant. If 
all goes well the human organism experiences a pleasant tone or feeling. 
If the environment impinges harshly upon the organism, then a disagree- 
able tone is experienced. An unbroken continuance of favorable or un- 
favorable circumstances may cease to bring out the organic tonal quality. 
If the environment has few new stimuli and arouses no new responses then 
the human organism lapses into a chronic state of disagreeableness, or 
ennui. If the environmental factors repeatedly defeat the organism at 
every turn then an essentially unpleasant organic tone becomes chronic and 
is accompanied by cynicism and fatalism. If circumstances present new 
problems from time to time the organism is likely to be stimulated to its 
highest efficiency. 

The tones of psychic nature are as old as psychic nature itself. They 
appear almost simultaneously with the causal stimuli. They are the first 
or advance responses of the organism to specific stimuli. A type of stimuli 
which as a rule has been favorable in the past to the organism or to the 
race or to both produces an agreeable tone in the organism. If some one 
were to suggest to me a visit to the dentist’s chair, I should experience an 
unpleasant tone, providing my previous experiences have been exceedingly 
painful. The stimulus releases an habitual reaction that has been built 
up on the basis of painful dental experiences, and I experience dis- 
agreeable feelings again. On the other hand if some one were to suggest 
to me a beefsteak fry in the Rockies, I should experience a highly agree- 
able psychic tone, providing I have enjoyed several such occasions. 

This tonal character of one’s nature seems to give a quicker-than-thought 


evaluation to a proposed activity upon the basis of past experience. It 
II 


12 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





was this which Plato undoubtedly had in mind when he said that there 
are two counsellors in one’s bosom, one is pleasure and the other is pain.* 

A pleasurable feeling is the beginning of a whole response of the 
organism and indicates that in the history of the organism or the species, 
the act which the given stimulus is calling forth has been helpful. The 
pleasurable tone is a blind guide, implying but not necessarily proving the 
present value of a proposed response. The fact that a certain type of 
responses has been helpful or harmful in the past indicates that in all prob- 
ability this type will continue to be helpful or harmful. If, however, con- 
ditions have changed, the tonal voice may prove a misleader. Before 
he responds to his tonal or feeling guidance, it is necessary, therefore, 
for a person to notice whether or not the main factors in a given social 
situation have changed. 

People are alike in their tonal responses because they have had about 
the same fundamental experiences of gain and loss. In the history of the 
human species, certain ways of doing have proved favorable to race devel- 
opment ; and others, unfavorable. Advantage is accompanied by agreeable 
tones or feelings, and disadvantage by a disagreeable tonal quality, ranging 
from a sense of complete loss (sorrow) to one of complete energization 
(angry determination). Upholders of race prejudice and race pride 
should observe that all races irrespective of color are characterized under 
similar circumstances by the same psychic tones or feelings. Social tra- . 
ditions have developed variations, but after all, the white, yellow, and 
black races alike experience joy, sorrow, and anger when responding to the 
respective types of stimull. 

The feeling or tonal qualities developed earlier than thinking in the 
species. The feelings have longer roots than ideas. They are more 
definitely a part of the inner core of personality. They have helped to 
make personality, long before thinking reached its full development, either 
in the individual or in the race. It is difficult to argue down the feelings. 

Again, feeling is not on the plane of thinking. It is not in the same class 
of phenomena. Thinking is superior in quality to feeling in that it can 
describe and analyze feeling, but it is inferior in that it can rarely overcome 
feeling. If one has been taught throughout the earlier years of life that 
thirteen is an unlucky number, it is with difficulty in later years that one 
can throw off the feeling response that thirteen had better be avoided. 
Years of thinking to the contrary do not always succeed in overcoming 
feeling. An idea which is thrown against the feelings by way of argument 


*Laws, tr. by Jowett, p. 644. 


AFFECTIVE NATURE 13 





does not meet them on their plane. It would seem that the best way to 
cope with the feelings is to stimulate counter feelings. 


EMOTIONAL REACTIONS 


Another type of inherited response is the emotional. An emotion may 
be considered a complex of feeling responses. It is usually accompanied 
by marked activity of the glandular system and hence is related to the 
autonomic neural system as well as to the central neural system. It may 
be accompanied not only by muscular responses but also by special ac- 
tivity of both the duct and the ductless glands, that is, in the case of anger, 
for example, there may be not only clenched fists, but also perspiration, 
and marked activity by the adrenals.2 An emotion is a complete organic 
disturbance. It arises when the organized inherited impulses or the habit- 
ual responses are blocked. Whenever an obstacle appears in the path of 
a human tendency a disturbance occurs, accompanied by affective manifes- 
tations. In a way, an emotion is a heightened affective phase of a mental 
crisis. Whenever a conflict in the central neural system takes place, an 
emotional disturbance occurs; when no conflict exists, ennui is likely to 
ensue. Emotions and ennui are the opposite feeling poles of personality. 
It may also be said that ennui is the dead center between the extremes rep- 
resented by the joyful and the sorrowful feeling responses. Angry emotion 
accompanies the conflict stages of a crisis when an individual is struggling 
against obstacles. The function of anger is apparently that of energizing 
the individual so that he may overcome obstructions in the path of his 
tendencies. Anger is clearly a combatant emotion, but it becomes trans- 
formed into joyful or sorrowful responses when the given conflict begins 
to eventuate into gain or loss for the individual as judged by the individual. 

A joyful response full of animation and expressions of surplus energy 
marks the more or less sudden realization of some important personal 
desire. A sorrowful response indicates the individual’s realization of de- 
feat, at least temporary, in some of his aims; while remorse, forlornness, 
pessimism, fatalism are permanent expressions of defeated desires. The 
joyful tone of the human organism accompanies a general expansion of 
the individual’s powers—his heart beats faster, circulation and respiration 
increase, and the organism is actually larger; while a sorrowful tone ac- 
companies a general organic shrinking. Joyfulness is accompanied by a 


?R. S. Woodworth, Psychology (Holt, 1921), Ch. VII; J. B. Watson, Psychology 
(Lippincott, 1919), Ch. VI. 


14 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





reckless organic offensive type of attitude; while sorrowfulness is paral- 
leled by a retiring defenselessness. 

Fear is an emotional response, which occurs whenever the individual 
realizes that his life, his possessions, or his loved ones are in great 
danger. Fear is an emotional response of a defensive nature and is closely 
associated with the desire for security. Fear may easily be acquired and 
developed into a standard set of habitual responses. That which is 
peculiarly strange naturally causes the individual to shrink away or to 
assume a defensive attitude. 7 

As concentrations of feeling tones, the emotions often run to extremes 
and are expressed in wild, blind discharges of energy or possibly in a more 
or less complete paralysis of organic activity. For example, anger results 
in concentrated but irrational outbursts of activity or it may completely 
block all motor activity ; while sorrow usually tends to produce only im- 
potence. 

One of the most elemental of emotional responses, basic to joy, sorrow, 
and even anger, is sympathy. As the term implies, sympathy means 
“feeling with,” and it may be regarded as a generic social tone of all higher 
organic life. An example of the expression of an elemental form of 
sympathetic emotion is the immediate and appropriate response of the 
brood of chickens to the warning cry of the mother hen.? As a result of 
sympathetic emotion, the vigorous crying of a baby is followed often by the 
simultaneous wailing on the part of all nearby infants, even when they 
apparently cannot have the slightest conception of the cause of the crying 
of the first child. For the same reason a scream of terror on the part of 
an adult evokes a similar pang on the part of bystanders, although the 
latter do not know the cause of the scream. By virtue of sympathetic 
emotion, anger provokes anger. If the parent or teacher spoken to angrily 
is able only by a great effort to keep angry feelings from arising, how 
much less is a child able to control angry response when spoken to in 
an angry tone. The wise parent, or teacher speaks authoritatively, but 
not angrily. 

The characteristic of “feeling with” others varies in degree with individ- 
uals and circumstances. In an extreme form it often decreases personal 
efficiency. It is unfortunate, for example, for a surgeon to be over-sym- 
pathetic. At the other extreme a want of sympathy permits one’s egoistic, 
selfish impulses to run riot. Sympathy enables the individual to under- 
stand the experiences, attitudes, and behavior of other people. While its 
generic nature contributes to self-sacrifice and unselfish living, it may be 

‘William McDougall, Introduction to Social Psychology (Luce, 1914), pp. go ff. 


AFFECTIVE NATURE 15 


used by the shrewd in highly selfish ways. Through sympathy one can 
learn to understand other people, and then by playing upon their sympathy, 
gain their confidence and take advantage of them. Courtship is often 
characterized by this abuse of sympathy, and many hasty and unwise mar- 
riages are to be explained in this way. Politicians often acquire an un- 
savory reputation by overmuch appeal to the sympathy of people. 

When an important issue is to be settled, the party which is successful 
in enlisting the sympathies of the public possesses a great advantage. 
The sympathies often lead to erratic behavior. Inasmuch as they, like 
the feelings, are not always in accord with the cognitive phases of mental 
life, they may be expressed in strange, irrational, and at times in un- 
reliable ways. Sympathy does not always connote dependable conduct. 
Perhaps the most conspicuous social characteristic of sympathy is its 
tendency to go out to the under dog in a conflict. It is also commonly 
allied with the old, the tried, and the true. It is a gigantic stabilizing 
force, but oftentimes it adds too much stability. Occasionally it is so 
closely attached to outworn habits and customs that it constitutes a 
stumbling block to progress. Nevertheless every new reform measure 
tries to win the permanent sympathy of the people. In fact, it must 
win these, if it is to achieve real success. Sympathetic feelings “always 
follow activities, and if the new activities can be established long enough 
feeling is sure in time to give them sanction”.* In this way new social 
values may be established and social attitudes changed and improved. 


SENTIMENTS 


Emotions tend to become organized in relation to personal values, and 
may then be referred to as sentiments. For example, there is the senti- 
ment of admiration, or a certain extension of one’s personality toward 
another person who manifests fine qualities of behavior. It always in- 
volves admirer and admired; it implies the expression of a measure of 
curiosity and wonder, or self-abasement, and also of being responsive to 
the person for whom admiration is experienced. A leader who is genuinely, 
successful must gain the permanent admiration of other persons. Ad- 
miration plus fear constitutes awe; and awe with the sense of indebted- 
ness leads to reverence—the highest religious sentiment.® 

Closely allied to admiration is respect. It involves more judgment and 
less emotion, and hence is more permanent than admiration. Respect is 


*C. A. Ellwood, Sociology in its Psychological Aspects (Appleton, 1912), p. 256. 
®*McDougall, op. cit., p. 132 ff. 


16 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





perhaps the most rationalized sentiment. Self respect means that one has 
given thought to his behavior and has justified it in the light of social 
standards. Without self respect it is almost impossible for one to maintain 
the respect of other persons, for by suggestion one’s attitudes toward 
one’s self influence the attitudes of others. Respect for another person 
means that one has analyzed the activities of the other person and ap- 
proved them. The available evidence seems to show that McDougall ® . 
may be mistaken in assuming that we always respect those who respect. 
themselves and that our respect for other persons is always a sympathetic 
reflection of their self respect. It is usually true that others must respect 
themselves before we will truly respect them, but if the social standards: 
of others are below our own or if their dependableness falls short of our 
own ideal of dependableness, respect for them fails to develop. 

There is a mild sentiment which arises out of sympathy for other per- 
sons but which does not result in positive sacrifice for others; this senti- 
ment is commonly known as pity. The person who pities usually feels 
that he is definitely separated by some barrier from the one who is pitied. 
Pity may be regarded as a differentiated form of sympathy which is held 
in check by a feeling of superiority, of inability to render aid, or of the 
impractability of giving aid. Pity rarely instigates activity but it may 
stay ruthless or vengeful action. | 

When a person finds himself depreciated or when he falls below the 
standards which others expect of him, his normal reaction is shame. To 
protect himself from such an experience, he is apt to submit unflinchingly 
to severe discipline. The group or the leaders in the group will often 
capitalize a person’s aversion to shame in order to secure his otherwise 
unattainable support of either a worthy or unworthy cause. 

When native impulses are closely organized and egoism has become 
standardized, an exaggerated sense of self-feeling easily becomes stimu- 
lated into the emotion of jealousy. Wherever invidious comparisons are 
made in one’s own field of activity, jealousy easily flares up. The suitor is 
“jealous” of all rivals, because somebody whom he is willing to die for 
is in danger of being won by other persons. The egoistic parent is sensi- 
tive regarding the success of the companions of his children, for he does 
not want /us children to be outshone. He is especially jealous of those 
persons whom his children listen to more than to him, for thereby his own 
opinions are being flouted. The egoistic jealousy of artists, débutantes, 
prima donnas, and others, “painters of the limelight and wooers of public 
favor,” comes from their having hinged their lives on applause. When 

* McDougall, op. cit., p. 161. 


AFFECTIVE NATURE 17 


that applause is transferred, their lives are flattened out entirely, except 
as jealousy blazes up. 

As a rule jealousy narrows personality, lowers one’s social standing, 
and cuts down one’s usefulness. In the long run one is justified in being 
“jealous” only for his character, for the character of other persons and 
of social institutions. 

A more aggressive but often subtler type of sentiment than jealousy is 
revenge. It arises when a person feels that he or someone in whom 
he is interested has been grievously injured and when the alleged offender 
does not make what is considered adequate amends. It is fitful, flaring 
high and dying down quickly, or it may smolder for years and break out 
in unexpected ways. It demands at least “an eye for an eye,” and because 
of its emotional nature it is likely to overrun its goal and to exact a double 
portion of atonement. Furthermore it invites retribution, arousing furious 
emotional reactions on the part of the persons against whom it is directed. 
Thus when the vindictive attempt to secure justice, they use methods 
which prolong the justice-securing processes indefinitely and inflict serious 
injustices. 

Revenge easily becomes generalized, and organized into group reactions 
which assume socially deep-seated and long term proportions, as in the case 
of blood feuds. The development of courts of justice has met the general 
need which is served by vengeance ; and consequently the overt and group- 
organized expressions of the sentiment are losing their original function, 
although still persisting tenaciously. Vengeance blazes up as in the case’ 
of lynchings; it also holds a concealed place in many lives as evidenced 
in class and race prejudices. 

Sentiments, diametrically opposed, are hate and love. Hate is an organ- 
ization of emotional energy against a person or a group believed to be 
hostile. It differs from revenge and jealousy in containing less pure 
feeling, and in being more rationally organized. It is also more openly 
expressed ; it does not cover itself up, except for conventional reasons. It 
stages open warfare and declares publicly its reasons. It is a long-lived, 
ingrained sentiment that functions unfortunately in behalf of narrow loyal- 
ties as distinguished from larger ideals. It hinders the progress of both 
its subject and its object. It is an ominous element in race prejudice. 
Its constructive value appears when it is directed not against people as 
such, but against evil behavior of any person and any group. 

Love is a conserving, stabilizing, and yet tumultous sentiment of un- 
measured power. In its more primitive, elemental nature it may be made 
up iargely of sex impulses, and consequently it may easily lead to license. 


18 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


A higher form is romantic love, which prompts one to great undertakings 
and sacrifices in behalf of the one who is loved.” The primitive nature of 
romantic love is demonstrated by its fickleness. It may lead, however, to 
conjugal love which possesses remarkable qualities of endurance. The 
strength of conjugal love develops out of the fact that husbands and wives 
have common experience of great joys and sorrows. It is particularly in 
the suffering together of husband and wife that fitful romantic love be- 
comes transformed into strong, deep, and abiding conjugal love. 

Maternal love is the keenest, deepest, and most concentrated form of the 
love of one person for another. The love of a mother for her child is 
the most enduring; it persists despite continued gross neglect and even of 
utterly despicable conduct on the part of the son or daughter. Paternal 
love is far less intense and permanent than maternal; it is more akin 
to fraternal love. Filial love is often strongly expressed in childhood and 
adolescence; it may then subside but be revived in the later years of life 
and assume its earlier strength, gladdening parental hearts. 

Consanguineal love ranges from the close attachment that is character- 
istic of fraternal love, to the affective elements in the brotherhood-of-man | 
principle. It frequently takes on idealistic forms, and easily extends 
beyond blood relationships, producing the highest bonds of friendship, as 
of him “who sticketh closer than a brother.” Consanguineal love leads to 
the most dependable types of loyalty. In it lies the energizing power for 
socializing the world. 


DESIRE 


Repeated inability to respond to moderate environmental stimuli creates 
in time a somewhat turbulent state known as desire. If the organism is 
unable after repeated attempts to secure the object of desire, then a chronic 
unpleasant tone results. Desire, declared Lester F. Ward,® is painful. 
He asserted that the sensation must be a disagreeable one because the 
organism struggles to end it. The reasoning is hardly complete. Many of 
the objects of desire involve an expansion of the organism in definitely 
sought directions. The desire for wealth if once gratified maintains itself, 
not because it is painful but rather because wealth gives a person in- 
creased control over things and people. This control results in an expan- 
sion of the person’s sense of the “me” and particularly of the “mine.” It 
secures him an increased degree of attention from and perhaps admiration 


Bihag Ward, Pure Sociology (Macmillan, 1914), pp. 377 ff. Ward was a pioneer 
in attempting a scientific analysis of the sentiment of love. 
* Pure Sociology, p. 103. 


AFFECTIVE NATURE 19 


of other persons. Desire itself may contain a painful element, because the 
individual is temporarily unable to respond the way he has been stimulated 
to do. The agreeable psychic tone which results from the gratification of 
desire more than offsets a temporarily painful element. 

It is this aroused but temporarily unsatisfied condition of psychic nature, 
or desire, that Ward believed to be the dynamic force in individual life and 
hence in social life. To point simply to an unsatisfied state of the psychic 
organism as the dynamic social agent is to overlook the factors condition- 
ing desire. Desire is a complex of affective and cognitive mechanisms 
resulting from the interplay of environmental stimuli and innate tendencies. 
It is in part an habitual seeking after objects, which thereby become 
values that give the organism a pleasant reaction tone but do not entirely 
satisfy it, and thus act as stimuli for further search after the desired 
objects or values. 

All the natural impulses, the feelings, emotions, sentiments may become 
organized into what W. I. Thomas calls “wishes ;” he classifies four: (1) 
the desire for new experience, (2) the desire for security, (3) the desire 
for recognition, (4) and the desire for response.1® The last mentioned 
should perhaps be put first, for it appears to be basic to all the others. 
The simpler forms of life, even the most elementary, are characterized 
by response to stimuli but cannot be said to have desires, with attention 
fixed on remote objectives. We therefore may refer to the fourth men- 
tioned desire as a basic mechanism of organic life. In a higher form it 
appears as a desire for social response. The desire for recognition def- 
initely reflects the stimuli which come from social life; it expands into 
the desire for power. The desire for security is evidently elemental and 
primary; it is made up largely of the self-preservation impulses. The 
desire for new experience leads out into the desire to do, to achieve. 
Thomas’ fourfold classification seems to be primarily individualistic. 
There may be also a fundamental desire to aid, to help. Its objective is 
not primarily the individual’s satisfaction, but rather the growth and 
satisfaction that others experience. This ultimately becomes an ethical 
attitude. 


REPRESSED FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS 
When a neuro-muscular mechanism is stimulated the natural tendency 


is for the neural process to run its course and issue in some form of 
motor activity. This process being largely physiological and psychological 


* Ibid., Ch. IV. 
* The Unadjusted Girl (Little, Brown: 1923), Chs. I, II. 


20 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





takes place in accordance with the nature of the environmental stimulus 
and not necessarily in harmony with socially derived standards of con- 
duct. The child cries for candy when it would be bad for him; he wishes 
to stay up beyond his regular bedtime, but regularity in sleeping hours 
is decreed; he wants a bicycle when in the judgment of his parents the 
dangers of bicycle riding are great, and the request is denied: in these 
illustrative instances, which might be multiplied without end, environ- 
mental factors have served as stimuli to perform actions that better adult 
judgment cannot permit. The ordinary adult reply to the child is “don’t”, © 
and the stimulated activity in the child is repressed before reaching its 
fruition. This released but “blocked” energy wells up and acts as a drive 
to emotional mechanisms, and thus may be expressed in harmful ways. 
Sometimes an individual after suffering bitter disappointment threatens 
to take his own life. Crying often serves as a means of discharge of 
energy that is blocked by some objective “don’t” to a desire that is in 
process of being fulfilled. Occasionally when a desire mechanism has 
been thwarted, the individual is “too angry” to express himself or to 
secure emotional satisfaction. In cases such as these repression may do 
great and lasting harm. The released but undischarged energy is held up 
in “mid-air” as it were, producing a fundamental disturbance of the whole 
organism.** It is to complexes of this type that psychotherapy has 
offered considerable aid. It is important that the resentment which com- 
monly follows repression be dissipated quickly and not be allowed to 
assume chronic forms, such as a permanently “balked disposition.” 

A boy or girl who possesses a high degree of energy naturally responds 
to countless environmental stimuli to activity, and his parents find them- 
selves unwittingly “sitting on the lid.’ Through ignorance or sheer lack 
of ingenuity, they fail to keep the boy’s energies engaged in constructive 
enterprises, and sooner or later find him guilty of destructive mischief. 
In rural life, there are wholesome opportunities for expressions of energy 
in field and farmyard, but in the city, these opportunities are cut off, one 
by one. Vacant lots disappear, and the streets become increasingly danger- 
ous playgrounds until city ordinance forbids all play upon them. Houses 
encroach on all available yard space until dark hallways and alleyways 
alone are left as spaces in which the normal energies of youth may be 
released, but in these remaining places of rendezvous the stimuli are too 
often of a vicious and evil nature. Cities, through their encroachment 


“Cf. such a work as Psychoanalysis, by A. A. Brill, for illustrations of psychoses 
of many years’ standing which originated in unfortunate repressions in the child- 
hood of the given persons, 


AFFECTIVE NATURE 21 





upon the playgrounds of youth act as crass repressive agents, meanwhile 
letting loose influences, which prey upon the repressed energies of un- 
trained human nature. It is well to remember that psychic energy cannot 
be abolished. “If it is neither exploded nor converted, it is turned in- 
wards, to lead a surreptitious, subterranean life.” 1? 

The Puritanic attitude, being repressive with reference to childhood, 
often produced a rooted hatred of the Sabbath, of church, or of other 
religious institutions or practices. Repression does not destroy, but causes 
a “welling up” of psychical energy which too frequently takes the form of 
sullenness, hatred, or even recalcitrancy. In its worthy aims of discipline, 
Puritanism neglected to study the psychology of repressed desires. Many 
church bodies have likewise neglected the psychology of repression and 
sublimation in their emphases upon the “Thou shalt nots” of religious 
discipline as related particularly to the play impulses of young people. 

The “only” child has received a considerable amount of attention on 
the part of the Freudians and other psychoanalysists. The repression is 
that of the gregarious impulses and is produced indirectly by an absence 
of proper environmental stimuli of the gregarious and playful types. 
The “only” child has a normal social nature but possessing limited 
opportunities for expression of his social traits in the company of other 
children, his energies are not released. They well up until they force 
themselves over the void into non-social or anti-social directions. They 
may turn into organized moroseness, selfishness, sexual self-abuse, or other 
unfortunate channels. Such a child may receive a surplus of attention 
from parents, and hence develop a chronic expectation of receiving 
attention. 

A child with a large endowment of energy may react to repression by 
“contrariness.’” He often makes requests which cannot be granted; his 
environment as he sees it impinges upon him at nearly every turn. Being 
continually repressed, his energies express themselves in beliefs that the 
world is against him, that all is wrong. Sometimes these beliefs may lead 
to murder or suicide. Most phenomena of the last mentioned type have 
been preceded by long periods of repression of certain dominant desires, 
although occasionally life is taken as a result of an abrupt repression, as 
in the case of the jilted lover, or the jealous spouse. 

Repression often leads to a super-development of imagination. Balked 
impulses may seek satisfaction in religious imagery. In fact one of the 
chief constructive phases of religious beliefs is that they are often sublim- 
ated opportunities for broken hopes and defeated ambitions. Of course 


4 John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct (Holt, 1922), p. 157. 


22 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





the imagery results of repression may easily take harmful trends as well 
as helpful ones. 

Then there is wise repression, i. e., rattonal discipline. Without repres- 
sion, the developing child succumbs to pernicious stimuli, and anti-personal 
as well as anti-social habits 1esult. Youth cannot have the discretion of 
age, and thus many tendencies are repressed by parent or by society. 
This process is basic to self control, without which there can be no depend- , 
able conduct. But where repression is resorted to, the disciplinarian nor- 
mally will provide for adequate sublimation. This need may often be met 
by a simple explanation of the dangers in the given stimulus, but if the 
stimuli are strong and insistent, then an alternative activity, future or 
present, will need to be provided. 

Discipline is essential to both personal and social progress, but it cannot 
be achieved without obliging the individual to run the gauntlet of the 
psychical dangers incident to repression. As a youth cannot well safe- 
guard himself from these evils, the major responsibility rests on his elders, 
or those who have his training in charge. Since these persons may be un- 
versed in the psychology of repression, they perpetrate all kinds of 
blunders upon relatively helpless children. 

The importance of disseminating the available knowledge concerning the 
nature of repression and sublimation is seen in the cases of lenient parents — 
who, dismayed by the effects of repression in their children, find them- 
selves baffled. Oftentimes they have neglected to provide sublimated op- 
portunities until repression produces such a storm of angry opposition, 
based on untoward habits, that they lose all control over their children. 

Undue repression of the feelings and emotions has led to warped per- 
sonalities, insanity, and social radicalism. Psychiatry offers valuable data 
for social psychology when it reveals case after case in which the impinge- 
ment of social conditions or personal insult and injustice has upset an in- 
dividual’s feeling and emotional nature and thrown it into a distorted con- 
dition. The life histories of revolutionists in various countries would 
doubtless reveal that their revolutionary attitude arose out of feelings dis- 
torted by genuine or imagined injustice. 

Affective human nature is evidently the most delicately adjusted and at 
the same time the most dynamic of all the factors involved in intersocial 
stimulation. It operates now subtly, now rashly, now without control, but 
always significantly in the formation of all social attitudes and values, 


while being at the same time the colorful dynamo of personal achievement 
and social progress. 


2O: 


AFFECTIVE NATURE 23 


PRINCIPLES 


. The human organism is characterized by tonal qualities that are indi- 


cative of the favorable or unfavorable results of past experience. 


. Because of similarities in basic experiences, people are remarkably 


alike in their tonal or affective reactions. 


. Obstacles create organic disturbances with deep-seated feeling, glandu- 


lar, and muscular manifestations called emotions. 


. Sympathy is an emotion that reveals the generic social tone of the 


organism. 


. Emotions that become organized in relation to personal and group 


values are known as sentiments. 


. Two basic sentiments with more far-reaching influences than any 


others are love and hate. 


. Generalizations of the impulses, feelings, emotions, sentiments into 


standard unfulfilled tendencies to act may be called desires. 


. The leading desires are: desire for social response, desire for security, 


desire for new experience, and the desire for recognition. 


. The undue or improper repression of the feelings and emotions leads 


to warped personalities. 

Affective human nature is evidently the most delicately adjusted and 
also the most dynamic of all the factors involved in intersocial 
stimulation. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. What does a pleasant feeling signify? 


2. Why is it difficult to “argue down” the feelings? 


Why are people of different races so much alike in their feeling 
reactions? 
What is an emotion? 


. Distinguish between the causes of sorrow, fear, and of anger? 
. What is the relation of sympathy and social reform? 

. Compare admiration and respect. 

. Distinguish between jealousy and revenge. 

. What is hate? 

. What is love? 

. Explain the nature of desire. 

. What are leading desires? 


24 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


13. What is meant by undue repression of the feelings? 
14. Distinguish between repression and discipline. 


PROBLEMS 


1. How far are the feelings subject to modification? 
2. Distinguish between feelings, emotions, and sentiments. 
3. Why do childten fear the dark? 
4. Why is it not enough for a business man to be a sympathetic husband 
and parent? | 
5. Should every citizen indulge occasionally in capricious giving? 
6. Is it true that one of the first qualifications of a public school teacher 
is to be happy? 
7. Can one love his neighbor at will? 
8. If one cannot love his neighbor at will, what is the next best thing to 
do? 
9g. What is the chief social value of hate? 
10. What is the leading social value in suffering? 
11. Explain: Friends are persons having about the same sets of preju- 
dices. 
12. Do you agree? “One does not fear effectually unless informed.” 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Baldwin, J. M., Social and Ethical Interpretations (Macmillan, 1905), 
Chs, VI, VITE 

Cooley, C. H., Human Nature and the Social Order (Scribners, 1922), 
Ch. IV. Social Organization (Scribners, 1909), Chs. XVI, XVII. 

Ellwood, C. A., An Introduction to Social Psychology (Appleton, 1917), 
Lin. NT: 

Sociology in its Psychological Aspects (Appleton, 1920), Chs. X, 
XIV. 

Hobhouse, L. T., Mind in Evolution (Macmillan, 1901), Ch. IV. 

Hocking, W. E., Human Nature and its Re-making (Yale Univ. Press, 
1918), Part IT. 

McDougall, William, An Introduction to Social Psychology (Luce, 1914), 





Chs. IV, V. 
Parmelee, M., The Science of Human Behavior (Macmillan, 1913), Ch. 
XIII. 


Ribot, Th., The Psychology of the Emotions (Scribners, 1911), Part II, 
Ch. IV. 


AFFECTIVE NATURE 25 


Ross, E. A., Social Control (Macmillan, 1910), Chs. II, III. 

Smith, Adams, in Carver, Sociology and Social Progress (Ginn, 1905), 
Ch. XVI. 

Tarde, Gabriel, Etudes de psychologie sociale (Paris, 1897), pp. 297-86. 

Thorndike, E. L., The Original Nature of Man (Teachers College, Co- 
lumbia Univ., 1920), Ch. XI. 

Wallas, Graham, Human Nature in Politics (Houghton Mifflin, 1906), 
Pact. Chil 

The Great Society (Macmillan, 1914), Chs. VI, VII, IX. 

Williams, J. M., Principles of Social Psychology (Knopf, 1922), Chs. ITI, 
IV. 





CHAPTER III 
COGNITIVE NATURE 


ESIDES possessing innate affective impulses human beings may con- 
centrate their psychic energy upon both tangible and intangible objects 
in ways called attention. Impulses require supplementing by deliberation, 
for quick automatic responses are inadequate when problems arise. Atten- 
tion occurs at those points where impulses and habits are incapable of meet- 
ing environmental demands. Attention takes place where new psychical ad- 
justments seem necessary; it is the chief factor in the process of adjust- 
ment? to environment, and particularly in active participation. 

Instinctive, affective, and emotional nature is insufficient in human situa- 
tions. New problems stimulate attentive activity and hence cognitive 
reactions become characteristic. If there were no new problems to solve, 
then the tonal qualities reflecting past experience would be clue enough for 
action. In new situations, the feeling tones are poor guides and hence an 
additional element is required, namely, thinking. With the feeling tones 
non-attentively evaluating stimuli on the basis of past experience, and with 
attention, concentrated and highly differentiated in the form of thinking, 
evaluating stimuli on the basis of present conditions and future probabili- 
ties, a person is equipped to solve his problems of life. 

As social environments, being less stable, give rise to more new prob- 
lems than physical environments, thinking is to a surprising degree a 
societary product,—its development having come in response to changes in 
social environments. Since a child of average ability growing up without 
social contacts would probably not advance beyond a state of mental 
grovelling, it is clear that one of the essential conditions for the develop- 
ment of thinking is folks. The effects of stimulating “psycho-social sur- 
roundings are seen in the mental activity of any typical child of cultivated 
parents. The term, “high potential of the city’, coined by E. A. Ross, 
refers to the myriad mental stimuli, which bombard the urban resident 
daily, and which unless too numerous and sharp augment his mental ac- 
tivity. 

*For a scholarly treatment of human thought about the nature of adaptation, see 


L. M. Bristol, Social Adaptation (Harvard University Press, 1915). 
26 


COGNITIVE NATURE 27 


IMAGINING 


After experiencing objects, a person can reproduce them mentally, 
which is a phase of thinking called imagining. The imagined object tends 
to release the same habit mechanisms as does the actual object. While 
images in a sense are recalled sensations, imagination is usually a pro- 
jective process, that is, images from the past or present and the known 
are projected into the future and the unknown. Imagination enables one 
to understand the unknown by the known and the future by the present 
or past. 

Erroneous is the popular idea that the imagination functions normally 
when it exaggerates, distorts, or falsifies. Imagination is often deliberately 
abused by false desires, and is not as such to be held accountable. On the 
other hand the imagination may fool its possessor, but even here an ex- 
planation is needful. A fact that is not definitely noted when it is before 
the attention is rarely recalled and imagined correctly. Since we attempt 
to recall many facts that were never carefully observed, we recall dis- 
tortedly and hence the imagination is charged somewhat unfairly of play- 
ing tricks upon a person. 

June E. Downey has found the following types of imagination: 


(1) The inert imagination 
(2) The stereotyped imagination 
(3) The melodramatic imagination 
(4) The generalizing imagination 
(5) The particularizing imagination 
(a) Reminiscential 
(b) Creative 
(c) Dramatic 
(6) The ingenious or inventive imagination 


Dr. Downey arrived at this classification by using “Personals” from the 
London Times, such as “Jaspar.—Tick-tock. Tick-tock—Sweetie.” She 
asked her students to select a “personal” and write a story from it. The 
results were examined, and classified according to type of imagination dis- 
played. These exercises indicated possibilities for testing the imagination 
paralleling the modern intelligence tests. 

The highest function of imagining is perhaps that of making the real 
seem more real.2 It operates even in advanced physical research and also 

"W. D. Scott, The Psychology of Public Speaking (Pearson, 1907), Ch. II. 


28 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





in the abstract processes of metaphysical reasoning. The public speaker 
continually utilizes images in order to present his ideas to his audiences. 
The crowd, a typical audience, or the average reader, grows restless 
unless the speaker or writer resorts to images. The advanced experi- 
menter in the laboratory imagines one possible solution after another 
to a problem and proceeds to try out the imagined solutions until he 
comes upon the correct one. His success depends in part upon his 
ability to imagine a variety of experiments. _ 

Imagination enables a person to put himself in the social situations of 
other persons, providing he has had similar experiences. According to 
Balzac, imagination permits a person to slip into the skins of other per- 
sons. A genuinely selfish man is unable truly to imagine himself in the 
situations of other persons, for all his experiences have become habitually 
organized about his ego. Imagination may be used anti-socially, for by 
it a person may secure entrée to the lives of other persons and take advan- 
tage of them to his own selfish gain. Imagination is a basic element in 
sympathy, and socialized imagining, or the process of picturing personal 
situations in terms of the welfare of other persons, is essential to per- 
sonal and group advance. 


REMEMBERING 


Another phase of thinking is remembering, which utilizes imagining; it 
is recalling by the use of substitute stimuli objects or ideas that have 
already been before one’s attention. Remembering is recalling with an 
attentive awareness ‘hat something is being summoned from past ex- 
periences. Where attention has repeatedly utilized a given thought 
process, and a habit mechanism has been set up, then recalling is fairly 
dependable. If, however, very many experiences have intervened and 
many new habit mechanisms have been constructed since a given recall has 
been stimulated, then memory may be very “treacherous.” The effect of 
intervening experiences is to modify the recall,* unless a habit mechanism 
has been regularly used. 

Many persons complain of their poor memories and even patronize the 
memory training schools, expending more energy in trying to memorize 
and utilize a set of abstract formule than is necessary in remembering by 
simpler methods. All who complain of poor memories overlook the fact 
that they are probably using only a small percentage of the recall ability 


* The “recall” is ‘so important a factor in thinking that the student should con- 
sult leading authorities in psychology for detailed information. 


COGNITIVE NATURE 20 


which they have inherited. For they can recall almost anything in which 
they have become greatly interested. They need to utilize extensively the 
practice of studying the given new idea and relating it, or some part of 
it, to an idea or a train of ideas for which a habit mechanism has already 
been built up. They need to learn the importance of expressing to others 
frequently that which they would later recall, that is, to build up appro- 
priate habit mechanisms. 


REASONING 


Thinking in its most complex phases takes cognizance of factors present 
neither in time nor space, and is known as reasoning, which in its essence 
is mental exploration, or following out a logical train of ideas.“ When 
reflexly, or impulsively, or habitually the individual finds no suitable 
immediate solution to a problem, he may seek by the trial and error method 
for a suitable solution. He may try one line of thinking after another or 
try them in various combined fashions. He may project his ordinary 
thought processes into the future for the purpose of solving anticipated 
problems, or he may consider problems whose constituent factors center 
on the opposite side of the earth. 

Reasoning takes cognizance of a larger environment than is present to 
the senses. It is a supreme adjusting agent.® It enables a person to ad- 
just himself to the various elements of a nation, a world, or even the 
universe. It may secure adjustment to all the problems of life and death. 
It assists an individual in becoming so adapted to his social and universal 
environments that he develops a perfected and socialized personality. 


CHOOSING 


A person can “choose” between several proposed activities and act ac- 
cordingly. Psychic nature is active, but apparently seeks the line of least 
obstacles. The development of thinking makes it possible to consider a 
wide variety of factors that are not directly or immediately before one’s 
attention at a given moment. What is called “choice” often turns out to 
be chiefly an out-going of psychic activity along the path appearing to 
present the fewest and weakest obstacles. Although this explanation of 
choosing is preferred by John Dewey,’ it does not seem to include all 
the factors. 


*C. A. Ellwood, Sociology in its Psychological Aspects (Appleton, 1912), pp. 119 ff. 

®An excellent summary of the different types of reasoning may be found in 
Woodworth’s Psychology (Holt, 1921), Ch. XVIII. 

°C. A. Ellwood, Sociology in its Psychological Aspects, pp. 119, 120. 

"Human Nature and Conduct (Holt, 1922), p. 192. 


30 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





b 


It is true that when we choose “the harder thing to do,” we may be 
selecting a course of action which has immediately ahead of it greater 
obstacles than some other course, but which when viewed in the long run 
has a lesser amount. It is also true that there may be a greater degree of 
inner urge. When we waver’and “cannot make up our minds,” we are 
perhaps finding a more or less equal number of hindrances in either of two 
or more contemplated pathways, or it may be that the inner urges in the 
alternative programs are more or less equal, or that in one case the inner - 
ufge is stronger but the obstacles are greater, while in the other instance, 
the inner urge is weaker but the hindrances are fewer. 

The so-called “margin of freedom in choice” then is to be viewed in the 
light of measuring the obstacles to be met and the worthiness of the 
competing goals, and one’s habits of action. Choosing resolves itself 
into a problem in calculus, and is often exceedingly difficult because of the 
inability of attention to hold before itself all the various urges and 
obstacles, and also because of lack of standards for measuring each of the 
urges and obstacles, and for measuring the relation of urges and obstacles 
to each other. 

The so-called margin of freedom in choosing varies: for example, 
when health conditions are unfavorable or when poverty pinches, the 
margin shrinks. For every person the margin varies from hour to hour. 
For nearly all persons this ability in choosing is in many ways the most 
interesting psychical characteristic which they possess. 


LEARNING 


Making choices and carrying them out is learning. It is in carrying 
choices into effect that one really comes to know them and their meaning. 
The experimental laboratory surpasses the classroom because it offers so 
many more opportunities for acting and doing, that is, for putting ideas 
into action. Discussion is superior to listening to a lecture, for it provides 
opportunities for expression. Action underlies learning because only so 
can habit mechanisms be developed. I could sit beside a chauffeur and 
watch him carefully in his handling of an automobile every day for a year, 
but at the end of that time I would not be a safe driver. It is in the actual 
driving that I establish the habitual responses which make me reliable. Ac- 
tion, therefore, leads to learning. 

The activity trait of human nature has been discussed by Veblen as “the 
instinct of workmanship.” * He shows how ordinary persons are nor- 

*The Instinct of Workmanship (Macmillan, 1914). 


COGNITIVE NATURE 31 


mally active and desire to achieve. Native activity finding vent in new 
directions of both personal and social gain is inventiveness, creativeness, 
and leadership. 

To do is to learn; experience is the greatest teacher. The one who 
does, without thinking, without having a sound theory, is apt to learn by 
the costliest method possible. There are many social situations, especially 
of the destructive type, into which one can put himself sufficiently by his 
imagination. Through doing and imagining a person has open doors not 
only to learning but also to invention and leadership. Where a motor 
response is required then doing is an essential element in learning, but in 
all other cases the imagination, which may be greatly furthered in its activ- 
ity by sympathetic feelings, helps to bring about understanding, and 
makes personal development and usefulness possible. 


PRINCIPLES 


1. When instinctive response fails in a given situation, there is a concen- 
tration of one’s psychic energy upon the problem in the form of at- 
tention. 

2. The rise of problems makes attention and cognition necessary. 

3. The thinking of past experiences or of present or future possibili- 
ties in terms of the concrete images that one has experienced is 
imagination. 

4. Remembering is thinking over the experiences of the past with an 
awareness that one has already had them. 

5. Reasoning is thinking logically ; it includes the pros and cons, together 
with an evaluation of each. 

6. Choosing is evaluating with the expectation of acting accordingly. 

7. Making choices and carrying them out is learning. 

8. Imagining situations and putting one’s self into them also is learning. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. What is attention? 

When does attention function? 

. Explain: Thinking is partially a social product. 

. What is imagining? 

. What is remembering? 

. Instead of complaining of a poor memory what should the ordinary 
person do? 

. What is reasoning? 


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14. 


15. 
16. 


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17. 
18. 


19. 


20. 


FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


. What is choosing? 

. Why do we sometimes choose “the harder thing to do?” 
. What is “margin of freedom” in choosing? 

. How does doing function in learning? 

. How does imagining help in learning? 


PROBLEMS 


. Why do you ever think? 
. Why are you thinking now? 


(When during your working hours do you think least? 
When do you think the most strenuously? 


. When do you do your highest grade of thinking? 


Does a squirrel need to be more intelligent than a fish? 


. Does an architect need to be more intelligent than a mason? 
. Does a child of the tenements need to be more intelligent than a child 


of wealthy parents? 


. Why is affective behavior expressed more quickly than cognitive be- 


havior? 


. How far is it true that the tap-root of selfishness is weakness of imagi- 


nation? 


. Is the intolerant, selfish nation the unimaginative nation? 
. What is a socialized imagination? 
. In what way do adults have an advantage over children in being able 


to remember? 

Is it true that the average student habitually begins the study of his 
lessons by memorizing “with the expectation of doing whatever 
thinking is necessary later?” 

Is the final examination system in universities sound? 

Can one think quickly and well at the same time? 

In what sense is it true that only those succeed who worry? 

Explain the statement: To think is dangerous. 

Why do so few people develop their reasoning ability to its full extent, 
when it would be so greatly advantageous to do so? 

Is it more common for a person to base his decisions upon evidence, 
than to seek evidence to justify his decisions? 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Baldwin, J. M., Social and Ethical Interpretations (Macmillan, 1906), 


iv Li. 


Dewey, John, Human Nature and Conduct (Holt, 1922), Part III. 


= Pe! te SIE ee a 


COGNITIVE NATURE 33 


Ginsberg, Morris, The Psychology of Society (Dutton, 1921), Ch. III. 

Hocking, W. E., Human Nature and its Re-making (Yale Univ. Press, 
1918), Part III. 

Edman, Irwin, Human Traits (Houghton Mifflin, 1920), Ch. III. 

Ellwood, C. A., An Introduction to Social Psychology (Appleton, 1917), 
Ch. IX. 

Sociology in its Psychological Aspects (Appleton, 1912), Chs. X, 
XII. 

Knowlson, T. S., Originality (Lippincott, 1918), Section II. 

Maclver, R. M., The Elements of Social Science (Dutton, n. d.), Ch. 
TN. 

McDougall, William, An Introduction to Social Psychology (Luce, 1914), 
Ch. IX. 

Paton, Stewart, Human Behavior (Scribners, 1922), Ch. XI. 

Pillsbury, W. B., Essentials of Psychology (Macmillan, 1920), Ch. XI. 

The Psychology of Reasoning (Appleton, 1910). 

Robinson, J. H., The Mind in the Making (Harper, 1921), Ch. II. 

Royce, Josiah, Outlines of Psychology (Macmillan, 1908), Chs. VIII, 
XV. 

Wallas, Graham, The Great Society (Macmillan, 1914), Chs. X-XII. 

Williams, J. M., Principles of Social Psychology (Knopf, 1922), Ch. II. 
Book II. 

Veblen, Thorstein, The Instinct of Workmanshsp (Macmillan, 1914). 








CHAPTER IV 
HABITUAL NATURE 


HROUGH interstimulation feeling, thinking, and learning become. 

organized into habits. Habit-building modifies original human 
nature and gives acquired nature its characteristic forms and meanings. 
Since it amounts to the making and re-making of human nature, it is a 
chief product of intersocial stimulation.* 

Traditionally, habit has been viewed as a static affair; the newer em- 
phasis is to think of habit in terms of the processes which make it: as 
such, it becomes vital and dynamic, a leading factor in personal growth, 
and the chief result of interstimulation.? 

Habit is organized response to stimuli. As is one’s environment, so 
is he,—is probably as true as its counterpart, “as a man thinketh, so is he.” 
In fact, the latter statement may be a corollary of the first, for the lines 
of one’s thought are largely determined by his social stimuli. Environ- 
ments are prime factors in manufacturing habits, and even give habits 
their patterns. It is possible to read a person’s social contacts in his — 
habits, for the different factors in one’s environments tend to reproduce 
themselves in one’s habits. We have not one social environment, but 
rather several, countless, social environments, and hence countless and 
often contradictory habits. 

When stimuli change, a person may fail to meet the situation, and 
a crisis occurs.* Whenever an established way of doing fails to meet 
urgent stimuli, habits break down. At once attention is centered upon 
the new stimuli and a reorganization of human nature is effected. 


HABIT VERSUS IMPULSE 


The actions of the lower forms of animal life are chiefly tropistic, 
reflex, and impulsive. Within narrow limits, higher animals adapt their 


*The chapters on habit by William James in his Psychology and Talks to Teachers 
called attention to the practical importance of the theme and opened the field to 
scientific study. 

* Splendid chapters on the psychology of habit formation from current scientific 
points of view are found in Watson, Psychology (Lippincott, 1919), Ch. VIII; 
es he Psychology (Holt, 1921), Ch. XIII; Judd, Psychology (Ginn, 1917), 

* Referred to in the chapter on “Stimulation.” Cf. W. I. Thomas, Source Book for 
Social Origins (University of Chicago Press, 1909), pp. 18 ff. 


34 


HABITUAL NATURE 35 


impulsive reactions to peculiar and new circumstances, thus acquiring 
habits. Man organizes his reflex and impulsive tendencies so completely 
in response to the multifarious elements in complex and variegated social 
environments that his so-called “instinctive” nature is drawn out in 
countless directions. A pure “instinct,” therefore, can hardly be said 
to exist in human life. It is more accurate to say that innate and in- 
stinctive activities sooner or later become organized into acquired or 
habitual mechanisms as a result largely of the stimuli arising from social 
environments.* 

Habit is more important in a sense than instinctive dispositions, for 
habits can keep the organism alive longer and better than “instincts ;” 5 
they serve as connecting’ mechanisms between native organisms and 
environment. They make adjustment substantial and dependable. They 
give meaning to instinctive tendencies by organizing them and building 
them into agencies of adjustment. Without these adjustment patterns 
native dispositions would be deprived of meaning. Man is thus closely 
identified with his habits as well as with his native dispositions. What 
he is depends as much on the nature of his habits as on his psychic 
inheritance as such. 

Habits often conflict with inborn impulses. They are different in 
expression, being complex, organized, and dependable; while impulses are 
more elemental, fitful, and less organized. The habits of mature indi- 
viduals often conflict with the impulsive nature of youth. The chasm 
that separates parents and children, especially if the children are born 
late, is due to the parent’s organized habit reactions being formed long 
before and in response to an environment which has undergone great 
changes and which now furnishes very different stimuli. The parent who 
wants to remain young with his children must companion with them 
and give attention to making over his habits in keeping with 
their needs. 

There is a strong tendency for a person to build up habit responses to 
meet whatever is expected of him (the socially reflected personality), and 


“Because of the individualistic trend that psychology followed until recent years, 
habit has been erroneously viewed apart from social stimuli. An outcropping of 
this conception is found in a recent work by Charles Platt, The Psychology of 
Social Life (Dodd, Mead: 1922), p. 59, where it is declared: “The formation of 
habit is a purely individual phenomenon.” Bey: 

5 Dewey contends that there are no separate “instincts,” pointing out by analogy 
that science and invention did not succeed so long as men indulged in the notion 
of special forces to account for physical phenomena, such as suction, thunder, light- 
ning, and rusting of metals. See Human Nature and Conduct (Holt, 1922), 
Ch, 


30 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





in so doing to camouflage his basic impulses. If the gregarious im- 
pulses cause him to give his attention to only a few friends, he is 
dubbed cliquish, until he re-forms his ways. If his sex nature leads 
him ‘“‘to make love’ in public, he at once becomes the victim of ridicule 
and practical jokes, and is constrained to conceal his deeper reactions 
behind conventional behavior. If he is frankly greedy, he is referred 
to as a “pig,” and learns to put up a screen of unselfish behavior, behind 
which he may continue to practice avarice. | 
Habits are energy units. Being natural impulses they are replen-— 
ished as needed by organic processes; they are also subject to the laws 
of fatigue. When they are stimulated, there is a discharge of energy, 
and the whole person acts in a certain way. Habits thus are prepared 
will power. They are will units that can be depended on to produce action 
whenever specific stimuli operate, unless inhibited. Habits are organized 
responsiveness. They indicate the trend of one’s personal development ; 
they are sign-posts, revealing a person’s general tendency of growth. Un- 
consciously to him they reveal what his attitudes are today and what they 
are apt to be tomorrow; they denote what he may be expected to achieve. 


HABIT AND HAVING 


Habit means to have. Habit gives possession; it offers permanency 
to experience. A city milkman who left his horse and wagon at the curb 
for a moment was surprised upon his return to see the horse, with the 
milk cans rolling from the wagon, pursuing on a gallop the fire depart- 
ment’s wagon that had passed. Several years previously the horse had 
become a well-trained member of the fire department, and on this occa- 
sion his former habits had been immediately stimulated by the clanging 
gong of the fire department’s wagon. 

The adze is widely used by the Eskimo. Attempts have been made to 
teach the Eskimo the use of the axe, but he persists in returning to the 
adze with its blade attached at right angles to the handle. The adze 
habit holds him in spite of strenuous efforts to substitute a better tool. 
When the Indian first buys a steel plow and gets it to his farm “he will 
saw off the left handle because the plows of his ancestors were guided 
with but one hand.” 

In a certain junior high school of Los Angeles where the pupils are 
classified according to their intelligence quotients, and the B-seven pupils 
are divided into eight classes, the highest being composed only of those 

*See Chapter VI for a discussion of socially reflected behavior, 


HABITUAL NATURE 37 





boys and girls whose intelligence quotients are 120 or over, the supervisor 
reports that several of the members of this supernormal group have to 
be urged repeatedly to work. They require more encouragement than 
do the average members of the lower intelligence levels in the same 
grade. After trying out every possible explanation for this necessity, 
the supervisor reports that the cause is in the fact that these supernor- 
mals have been members for six successive grades of undivided classes 
where they acquired habits of doing only moderately well, where the 
pace of the average or mediocre had been an easy one for the brightest 
pupils, who had fallen into habits of work much below their best, and 
which, now that they are members of a supernormal group, they are 
able to overcome only with great difficulty. 

Although I learned to ride a bicycle many years ago, and have not 
ridden for years, I would not hesitate today to try to ride; within a few 
minutes I should expect to feel at home again upon a “wheel.” The 
process of bicycle riding was many years ago reduced to a habitual 
mechanism that abides with me. How many persons learned in youth 
to spell and pronounce certain words incorrectly, and although later they 
have learned their error, still find the misspellings and mispronunciations 
troublesome. Habit is in a way like a safety deposit vault into which 
thieves cannot break through and steal. 

Habits of life may become fixed. The farmer, the worker, the house- 
wife develop habits of thinking from which they cannot escape, partic- 
ularly, when old age comes. Not being used to reading much or doing 
abstract thinking, and not being physically able to work at their lifelong 
tasks they spend their last years in restless idleness. 

Habits not only persist, but often they persist too long. They main- 
tain themselves after their usefulness has ended. A destructive habit 
persists until it exhausts the individual; a constructive habit saves life, 
enabling a person to meet the increasingly larger demands of new and 
expanding social environments. It is a difficult problem however to form 
habits well adapted to present situations and capable of meeting new 
stimuli. 


HABIT AND THINKING 


Thinking comes to be habit; thought habits predominate. They de- 
termine one’s behavior and the direction of his activity. Since thinking 
turns into habit, knowledge becomes an organization of habits. It is 
only by repeatedly thinking an idea through that we come fully to under- 


38 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


stand it; and it is only by such repetition that it becomes a part of our 
mental store, and attains the status of a habit. 

The process known as association of ideas is basically habit. When 
a new thought is associated with an old one, a new habit is 
added to an established one. “ A belief is clearly an habitual way of 
thinking; an ideal is a habitual thought goal. A judgment is a habitual 
phase of thinking, while even the desires have an unconscious habitual 
nature. 

Habit gives a motor character to ideas; it organizes thought-activities 
which are often unconsciously released or discharged. Hence, secret 
thoughts crop out unexpectedly and unintentionally. A secret thought 
is bound sooner or later to disclose itself, often to the owner’s chagrin. 
It is in the off guard moments that the innermost phases of personality 
are revealed through habit and impulse. 

The “medium” utilizes the fact that Toutanaee set in habit-molds, may 
be released, and recognized by the observer. The medium and palmist 
maintain a continuous conversation, apparently meaningless in part, 
which releases many of the sitter’s habit mechanisms, and these at once 
find expression in muscle movements which the medium “reads.” Much 
of so-called mind reading is muscle reading of this character. The 
slightest changes in the facial expression of the sitter are noted—and 
good guesses are made regarding the sitter’s thoughts, feelings, and 
experiences. 

An idea often expressed develops a habit mechanism, which when re- 
leased, makes the idea dynamic. If I have learned to know which direc- 
tion is east and which is west and accordingly have “gone east,” to the 
east side of the street, to the eastern part of the city, or looked to the east, 
and so on many times, then for “east” I shall have established a definite 
habit-mechanism. If you mention east to me, I shall lean east slightly, 
unless the movement is definitely inhibited, for your mention of east 
has served to release my “east” habit mechanism. It is upon this phe- 
nomenon that the principle of suggestion rests, as will be shown in a 
subsequent chapter. 

That which becomes habitual sinks below the threshold of conscious- 
ness, and since so much of life is reduced to the habitual, there is a sense 
in which the subconscious becomes the major portion of personality. 
Dreams are partly to be explained as segments of habitual activity 
coming to the foreground in one’s sleep, and the ludicrousness of dreams 
is often found in the fact that these segments are reproduced outside 
their original and natural setting. The relinquishment of attentive con- 


OO OE EE 


ee a ee 


a ee 


HABITUAL NATURE 39 


trol which occurs in sleep frees these habit segments so that they may 
appear in peculiar and sometimes startling fashion. Habits therefore 
may safely be viewed as primary factors not only in conscious life but 
also in one’s subconscious nature. 


PRACTICAL RESULTS OF HABIT 


Habits stabilize. A person with strength of character possesses a 
large number of well-organized habits. One is reliable when he has 
habits and hence acts with a certain uniformity in given situations. He 
who is trusted is ordinarily the person who is honest by habit. Accord- 
ing to his habits, a person is entirely dependable—dependable to vote for 
alcoholic liquor or for prohibition; dependable to seek the easy task, or 
to tackle the difficult enterprise; dependable to beg or to give; depend- 
able to steal or to serve; dependable to vote for child welfare measures 
or for legislation favoring greed at the expense of little children; de- 
pendable to accept bribes or to render public service at the expense of 
his own occupation. The highest type of habits is socialized, whereby 
the individual habitually responds first to public welfare or to individual 
needs in line with public welfare, and only secondarily to egoistic 
impulses. 

Habit enables one to do a large amount of work with a relatively 
small degree of fatigue. The first hundred miles that one drives an 
automobile in learning is more wearing upon him than the second 
thousand miles. In any field the learning processes are usually very 
fatiguing. 

Habit increases accuracy. Note the difference between driving a nail 
the first time and the twentieth. Compare the accuracy of a piano 
novice and a Paderewski. Observe the difference in movements and 
despatch of a group of recruits and a trained regiment. It is strangely 
true that nothing is well done until it is done by habit. 

Habit is a time saver. Suppose that the grocer had to learn to read 
every time he filled an order for a customer, that an engineer had to 
learn to manipulate an engine whenever he started upon his regular 
run, or that a banker had to learn the numerical system whenever he 
transacted business for a patron—these suppositions indicate the almost 
inconceivable dependence of modern social processes upon established 
habits. 

Habit releases the mind from the necessity of paying attention to the 
details of the successive steps of an act; it frees the mind for new tasks. 


40 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


He who has a large number of well established habits is free to devote 
his whole attention to the best advantage on the problem of the moment. 
If it is true that the man who is in the grip of habit is a slave, it may 
be also true that he has freedom. 

An individual is a slave when habit is destructive; he whose habits are 
all constructive is a free man. The question may well be raised: What is 
the difference in nature between a destructive habit and a constructive one? 


We may answer by pointing out that some habits use up energy to secure a 4 


present good, but conserve nothing for a future good; some use energy 
to promote the place of self at the expense of the welfare of others. 

Destructive habits are often acquired as a result of unconscious adapta- 
tion. Unless children are taught to build constructive habits only, un- 
conscious and passive adaptation to social environments will likely bring 
about unwholesome habits. The ordinary person at maturity finds himself 
with some harmful habits unwittingly acquired in childhood and youth. 
As one’s social environments change, habits persist and become unwhole- 
some under the new conditions. A part of the moral struggle which 
every person carries on is found in this conflict between habit and 
current needs. If a person does not continually revise his habits, they 
will carry him out of line with his changing environment, and ultimately 
drive him to defeat. 


Popular opinion has emphasized the evil of “bad habits’ so much ~ 


that the value of good habits and even of habituation itself as a psycho- 
social process has not been appreciated. Selfish habitual response de- 
serves all the opprobrium which has ever been heaped upon it, but 
socialized habitual responses have been neglected in popular thought, 
while the fundamental rdle of habit mechanism in directing impulses, 
in meeting environmental stimuli, in the formation of personal char- 
acter, and in the maintenance of social customs has rarely been under- 
stood. The degree to which man is a creature of habit, even more 
perhaps than of thought (for thinking could not take place without 
habit mechanism) is startling. 

Habit is the core of social custom. The customs of parents, teachers, 
and leaders set most of the pattern-habits of individuals. Customs, 
social atmosphere, and other conditions under which individuals grow 
up constitute the social environments which determine the set or 
pattern of personal habits. 

The importance of these custom-patterns as a controlling factor in a 
child’s life is seen in the wholesale way in which the child adopts the 
language of his parents. He may contribute only a few new word forms 


HABITUAL NATURE AI 


to the mother tongue of several thousand word-habits. In the same way 
other customs exercise powerful control over him. 

Education is habit formation. It is drawing out one’s impulsive 
nature repeatedly in given thought and behavior directions, that is, it 
is habit-forming. The truly educated person is he who has a wide variety 
of definitely organized data about many phases of life which by habit 
he brings to bear on problems as they arise. Education, viewed objec- 
tively, is the process of helping other individuals, noticeably children, 
to form habits such as the teacher or leader believe that they should 
establish. 

Habituation is the essence of the learning process. To learn is to 
reduce an idea or an action to a habitual form of expression. Often- 
times an idea may be acquired best by analyzing it and connecting or 
associating it with habitual responses that are already established. An 
idea, to be learned, must be not only perceived, but be given motor 
expression repeatedly.’ I can listen to excellent lectures on democracy 
but I am not likely to understand fully until I do democracy. Then 
I get the feel of it as well as a picture of it. 


THE CONTROL OF HABIT 


A safe procedure is the formation of general habits, such as industry, 
reliability, thoroughness, that is, habits which may be kept permanently, 
but which may be modified as new stimuli require. A person needs to 
watch diligently his habit-forming tendencies, to seek the counsel re- 
peatedly of elders with broad vision and experience, to scrutinize his 
incipient habits, and, most important of all, to establish the habit of 
forming new mental habits. 

To control habit is the strategy of life. Since habit is organized psy- 
chical energy and its organization is under the control of attention, it is 
possible to order one’s life by regulating habit, especially the formation 
of habit. The establishing of habitual mechanisms is more largely 
under a person’s control than any other phase of his personality. A 
person may modify old habits and build new ones in any direction that 
his environments permit. It is a fortunate child who has teachers and 
parents who impress him with the fact that he can plan his habits and 
who can deliberately set out to build up habits in increasingly social 
ways. He who teaches a child narrowing, selfish habits is anti-social, 


‘The nature of this process has been elaborated at length by R. S. Woodworth 
in his Psychology, Ch. XIII. 


42 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





while he who trains a child to build socially useful habitual responses 
is one of the greatest benefactors of both the child and the race. An 
ideal habit is that of maintaining a democratic survey of social situations 
and of reacting in harmony with the results of this evaluation.® It is 
surpassed in importance only. by such a habit as that of judging one’s 
own habits as impersonally as possible and of acting accordingly. It is 
evident that a fundamental habit to establish in early life is that of | 
criticizing one’s own habit-forming processes, and one’s own habits. 
The universal tendency is that of criticizing the habits, particularly the 
“bad habits” of other persons, while looking with an indulgent eye upon 
one’s own habits, even the harmful ones. A scientific attitude is that 
of making the habit-examining habit supreme. 

Social progress rests upon individuals developing the general habit of 
reacting to every stimulus first from the standpoint of the welfare of 
others and then from the standpoint of one’s self. This is one of the 
most difficult habits to form; it is the essence of socialized behavior. It 
is the most fundamental phase of the habit-examining and habit-forming 
processes. 


PRINCIPLES 


. Habits are impulses organized in standard ways in response to needs. 

. Habits originate in crises, caused by new stimuli. 

. Habit means to have. 

. Thinking is habit. 

. Habits (a) stabilize, (b) decrease fatigue, (c) increase accuracy, 
(d) save time, (e) enslave or free, and (f) furnish the core of 
custom. 

6. Education is habit formation. 

7. To control habit is the strategy of life. 


mB WN 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


1. What is habit? 

2. When is a new habit most apt to be formed? 
3. When do habits conflict with inborn impulses ? 
4 What is the derivation of the term, habit? 


_ “An excellent social theory of “harmony” has been developed by L. T. Hobhouse, 
in his Elements of Social Justice (Holt, 1922), which gives a philosophical back- 
ground to the psychological point that is here noted. 


ra 
—™ OO ON Ow 


= 


OS STON 


IO. 
Eis 


12. 


HABITUAL NATURE 43 


. Explain: Thinking is habit. 

. Illustrate: Habit gives a motor character to ideas. 

. Distinguish between the enslaving and freeing traits of habit. 
. Explain the relation of personal habit to social custom. 

. Why are habits so commonly deprecated ? 

. In what ways is habit-formation the essence of education? 
. Why is the control of habit the strategy of life? 


PROBLEMS 


. Criticize the statement, “he instinctively closed the door”? 
. How do you explain that speed which is habitual is never hurried? 
. Why is it ordinarily true that whatever is worth doing at all is 


worth doing well? 


. Give a new illustration of each of the following statements: 


(a) Habit is a time saver. 

(b) Habit increases accuracy. 

(c) Habit gives permanency to experiences. 
(d) Habit gives strength of character. 


. Explain Wallas’ statement that the population of London would be 


starved in a week if the flywheel of habit were released. 


. How might you proceed psychologically to break a habit? 
. Which would represent a greater loss to a person, the loss of his 


habits or the loss of his inherited impulses? Why? 


. Explain: “There is no more miserable person than the one in whom 


nothing is habitual but indecision.” 


. Which will be used primarily in the following cases, habit or native 


impulse ? 
(a) By an untrained puppy when his mistress appears with a 
plate of scraps. 
(b) By a trained puppy under similar circumstances. 
(c) By a salmon in a whirling current of a river. 
(d) By a fireman who sees a house on fire. 
(e) By a mother whose child is in imminent danger. 
Compare the evils of occasional lying with those of habitual lying. 
Name one constructive or good habit that you have formed during 
the past year. 
What do you think is the habit of greatest importance that an in- 
dividual can form, and why? 


44 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Angell, J. R., An Introduction to Psychology (Holt, 1918), Ch. V. 

Baldwin, J. M., Mental Development (Macmillan, 1906), Ch. XVI. 

Dewey, John, Human Nature and Conduct (Holt, 1922). 

Edman, Irwin, Human Traits (Houghton Mifflin, 1920), Ch. II. 

Goddard, H. H., Psychology of the Normal and Subnormal (Dodd, 
Mead: 1918), Ch. XII. 3 ) 

Holmes, A., Principles of Character Making (Lippincott, 1913). 

James, William, Psychology (briefer course), (Holt, 1907), Ch. X. 

Talks to Teachers (Holt, 1904), Ch. VIII. 

Judd, C. H., Psychology (Ginn, 1917), Ch. IX. 

Morgan, Lloyd, Habit and Instinct (Methuen, 1913). 

Paton, Stewart, Human Behavior (Scribners, 1921), Ch. IX. 

Platt, Charles, The Psychology of Social Life (Dodd, Mead: 1922), 
Ch aM. 

Rowe, S. H., Habit Formation and the Sctence of Teaching (Long- 
mans, Green: 1916). 

Scott, Walter D., The Psychology of Advertising (Small, Maynard: 
IO12), Ghai 

Wallas, Graham, The Great Soctety (Macmillan, 1914), Ch. V. 

Watson, John B., Psychology (Lippincott, 1919), Ch. VIII. 

Williams, J. M., Principles of Social Psychology (Knopf, 1922), Ch. I. 

Woodworth, R. S., Psychology (Holt, 1921), Ch, XIII. 





CHAPTER 
SOCIAL NATURE 


FFECTIVE and cognitive nature as well as habitual nature are 
phases of social nature. To the extent that human [fe is the 
product of intersocial stimulation it is social. The more extensive the 
intersocial stimulation, the more numerous and significant the social 
contacts; the richer the contacts, the deeper and broader the social nature 
of human beings. Through stimulation affective and cognitive nature 
becomes organized into habitual ways of reacting to life., 1. e., into 
attitudes. 

An attitude is a tendency to act toward or against some environmental 
factor which becomes thereby a positive or negative value. It is less 
innate than a desire, more clearly defined, more definitely selected by 
a person, more cognitive. It incorporates not only affective and cognitive 
but volitional elements. Attitudes are as numerous as the valuable objects 
in social environments. They represent almost as many levels as there 
are persons holding them. The point may be illustrated by the three 
men working at the same task in a stone yard. Each in turn was asked 
what he was doing. The first said, “I’m breaking stone;” the second, 
“T’m earning eight dollars a day;” and the third, “I’m helping to build 
a great cathedral.” 

Attitudes and values, particularly the former, are considered so im- 
portant that Thomas and Znaniecki made the study of them synonymous 
with social psychology.1 The objective cultural elements of social life 
are values, and the subjective characteristics of the members of the 
social group are attitudes.? An attitude is “a process of individual con- 
sciousness which determines real or possible activity of the individual 
in the social world,” and a value is “any datum having an empirical 
content accessible to the members of some social group and a meaning 
with regard to which it is or may be an object of activity.” When 
anything acquires a meaning it becomes thereby a social value. The 


* The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (University of Chicago Press, 1918), 


Vol. I, pp. 27 ff. ; 

4Tbid., p. 20. Cf. E. W. Burgess, “The Study of the Delinquent as a Person,” 
Amer. Jour. of Sociology, XX VII: 671. 

Si bid.; D. 21. 


45 


46 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





chief significance of a social value, perhaps, is that it produces a more 
or less different effect on every member of a social group and even 
different effects upon the same person at different moments.* The 
attitude is thus the personal counterpart of the social value, and any 
form of activity is the connecting factor.® 

An attitude is not necessarily synonymous with an opinion. The 
latter is an expression which one may repudiate when the real test 
of action comes. It may be “merely a defense reaction which through 
over-emphasis usually falsifies consciously or unconsciously a man’s 
real attitude.” An attitude is found in one’s acts, but not simply in 
a single act. It is disclosed by acts in relation to past acts.* The real 
source of attitudes thus is in personal experiences, especially in life 
histories of persons. In these connected personal experiences is to be 
found the main source of social psychological data. 


THE SOCIAL ATTITUDE 


Since every human being is largely group-made, he has a general 
social nature. This group priority, described by the writer elsewhere,’ 
means that every individual is born into countless and powerful group 
influences and heritages. He is in many ways a product of group stimuli, 
and his parents before him, also. This general social nature possessed 
by all persons crops out as social solidarity, or again as a “sense of 
unity or feeling of belonging-together that makes every member of a 
group seem to himself to be kin to every other member.” ® 

It is this basic group spirit which McDougall apparently overlooks in 
his discussion of gregariousness.? A person’s chief activities are phases 
of associative life, and hence, the socially-favorable reaction is charac- 
teristic of all human responses. The human organism is largely steeped 
in and a product of associative living, and therefore, the social element 
pervades in human nature. Sociality is a background of all human life, 
even of the acquisitive and combative attitudes. Even these with their 
frequently destructive traits could not function outside a social world. 

The belief that man is inherently selfish, that he is a product of tooth 


* Ibid., p. 30. 

* Ibid., p. 22. 
Pes and Znaniecki, The Polish Peasant in Europe and America, 

Sia. D. 7. 

*“The Principle of Group Priority,” Jour. of Applied Sociology, VII: 85-88. 
°R. H. Gault, Social Psychology (Holt, 1923), p. 14. : 
Introduction to Social Psychology (Luce, 1914), Ch. XII. 


SOCIAL NATURE 47 





and fang behavior, that he is natively warlike, ferocious, and savage 
received great impetus from a false interpretation of Darwinism. It 
is also true as Kropotkin?° and others have indicated, that man is in- 
herently social. There is in evolution a social and communicative back- 
ground without which even social conflict would be impossible. 

David Hume, one of the first close observers in social psychology, 
asserted that every pleasure languishes and every pain becomes more 
cruel when experienced apart from the company of others.14 “Let all 
the powers serve one,” declared Hume, “and he will still be miserable 
till he be given at least one man to enjoy them with him.?? All the data 
on isolation constitute a negative but vital testimony to the significance 
of a general social attitude.** E. A. Ross gives several excellent illus- 
trations : 

Hume confesses, “I feel all my opinions loosen and fall of themselves when 
not supported by others,” and George Sand cries, “I care but little that I am 
growing old but that I am growing old alone.” De Senancour, author of 


“Obermann,” renounces the world, yet wishes there might be at his end one 
friend to “receive his adieu to life.” Cowper exclaims: 


How sweet, how passing sweet is solitude. 
But grant me still a friend in my retreat 
Whom I may whisper, Solitude is sweet. 


Gifted men who are far above or ahead of their time are likely to be so 
neglected, misunderstood, or hawked at that in despair they turn misanthrope 
and hold aloof from their kind. The biographies of genius are full of trage- 
dies of expansive souls, yearning for communion and sympathy, yet finding 
their offerings ignored or rejected, so that they end eating out their hearts in 
their loneliness.1+ 


Solitude tends to disintegrate even the strongest personalities; it in- 
dicates the fundamental need for social contacts. 


THE GREGARIOUS ATTITUDE 


Gregariousness is a special phase of the social nature. In animals it 
is the herd instinct. Individual animals among many higher species seem 
to find special satisfaction in being one of a herd, flock, or similar group, 
and an uneasiness tending toward distraction in being separated from 
the group. The animal which becomes separated from the herd will 
risk its life in order to rejoin the group. 


Mutual Aid, a Factor in Evolution (Doubleday, Pages 1902), 
nies Treatise of Human Nature (Oxford, 1896), p. 363. 
™ Tid. 
See a subsequent chapter on “Isolation.” 
“Principles of Sociology, p. 99. 


48 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





The gregarious attitude is an outgrowth of the herd instinct of animals. 
It is largely feeling and is expressed in the crowd spirit, in cliquishness, 
race and class prejudices. It rarely rises far above instinctive levels; 
it is generally blind but dynamic. 

Gregariousness possesses # definite survival value inasmuch as it keeps 
individuals together and furnishes a basis for cooperative effort. Under 
primitive social conditions where the “herd” is more vital than any other, 
form of grouping, gregariousness is basic. From it, “loyalties”, 
patriotism, and other group sentiments have sprung. Gregariousness un- 
derlies all fraternal relations between persons. It rarely functions more 
widely than within national and racial limits, although it may expand, 
it is to be hoped, to include the world group. 


THE SEX ATTITUDE 


The sex attitude arises from the complementary nature of the sexes, 
physically, mentally, and socially. The sex impulses make the race pos- 
sible, and hence their urge remains strong. The regulation of them has 
always constituted a grave social problem. All tribes and peoples have 
struggled with this Hercules among social problems. In the United 
States a far-reaching conflict is in progress between the forces of com- 
mercialized vice and those of chastity. The widespread and appalling use 
of hotels and apartment houses by “mistresses” who are supported by 
men, some of whom are so-called “respectable” persons, and the congre- 
gating of prostitutes around army cantonments are symptoms of the level 
to which the sex attitude may fall. The sublimation of the sex urge into 
monogamic conjugal love and parental attitude testifies to the heights tc 
which the sex attitude may attain. 


THE PARENTAL ATTITUDE 


A little child is generally rated as the chief social value known to 
mankind. The presence and needs of the child create new relationships 
between the husband and wife and set up the parental attitude with all 
its self-sacrificing implications. Parents and children constitute society’s 
most important institution, and the parental attitude is of primary 
significance. 

Without parental care the offspring early begins the struggle for exist- 
ence, against great odds, and with little opportunity for normal develop- 
ment. With one parent to give a protecting and directing care, the 


SOCIAL NATURE 49 





offspring has a fair chance for self development and for rendering useful 
service to society. When both parents intelligently codperate in the 
process of family building, the children are thus given the advantage of 
the experience of two elders, and are protected from the harsher phases 
of the struggle for existence, for a time sufficient to enable them to 
mature, and to learn the fundamental principles of codperative living. 
With parental care the children develop filial love as well as fraternal love. 

The loss of the influence of two worthy parents is so great that children 
who grow up outside the family have few chances to become socialized 
members of society. In studying the home conditions of delinquents, 
the writer has found that the broken or unfit home of one type or 
another 7° is a leading factor in the majority of delinquency cases. The 
loss to a child of a socially-minded and sympathetic parent is irreparably 
great, and the loss of two such parents is beyond comprehension. No 
public or private institution is equivalent as a substitute. It is an estab- 
lished principle of modern philanthropy that the best alternative for the 
child’s own home—if it fails—is a home with foster parents who are 
wisely selected and who maintain a home that is reasonably suited to the 
temperament and needs of the child. 

As member of a family, the child learns fundamental rules of conduct, 
gains respect for law, and acquires rudimentary principles of cooperation. 
Since the family has the characteristics of a social microcosm, the child 
in a social visioned family acquires many of the habits basic to con- 
structive participation in public life. 

To the parents themselves, the development of the parental attitude 
results beneficially. Parenthood prompts to conduct which is essentially 
altruistic. The parental attitude is constantly coming into conflict with 
the egoistic impulses and would often be worsted but for the strong rein- 
forcements which society itself has brought to its aid. In order to 
protect itself and to further the parental attitude the given group — and 
society —has built up powerful sanctions, for example, the moral rules 
which were instituted in ancient Hebrew days. The injunction: Honor 
thy father and thy mother, has served as a bulwark to the parental im- 
pulses through the centuries. Then there is the institution of marriage 


* There are several types of broken or unfit homes, namely: (1) The home entered 
by death, (2) the home in which the parents are separated, (3) the home in which 
the parents are divorced, (4) the home in which prolonged poverty or pauperism 
exists, (5) the home that is vitiated by the extended sickness of the main wage- 
earner, (6) the home characterized by shiftlessness, incapacity, and irresponsibility, 
and (7) the immigrant home where the parents in trying to adjust themselves to 
the strange American environment have lost control of their children. 


50 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


which assumed form as a guardian of the parental attitude. | Taboos 
upon celibacy, upon divorce, upon immoral sex life are effective social 
agents which lend support to the family. Ancestor worship has hallowed 
parenthood and thus helped to give China a long life. Persistent em- 
phasis upon a sound parental attitude has enabled the Hebrew race to 
perpetuate itself and assisted it to survive countless obstacles and in- 
numerable destructive factors. In summary, it may be said that the 
sex and parental attitudes run the entire gamut of life from low brute 
levels to the highest social and spiritual planes. | 


THE PLAY ATTITUDE 


Innate impulses become easily organized into habitual forms known as 
play. Play and work overlap. Both require expenditure of effort, but 
play is expenditure in undertakings involving stimulating problems. Effort 
which in itself produces agreeable feelings is regarded as play. If 
work contains sufficient stimuli it is play. The man who finds his work 
full of interesting problems does not impatiently wait for five o’clock 
to come, but continues ten or twelve or more hours at his work daily. 
A large percentage of work, therefore, will become play, if it can be 
made interesting enough. 

Playfulness renews life; it rehabilitates and re-creates life. It may 
offer relaxation from regular routine, and bring the individual to a healthy 
attitude toward the world of living, changing, and developing people. No 
personality in whom the play spirit dies can long remain well-balanced. 
The play attitude is essential in seeing the humorous side of life, in 
perceiving the silver linings to the cloudy days, and in appreciating 
mirthful situations. The play impulses must remain inflexible through- 
out life if one would keep his personality in tune with changing social 
phenomena. 

As a member of a play group, the child learns codperative lessons of 
fundamental importance. Play is a primary factor in satisfying the 
child’s desire for social response. At the age of three or thereabouts 
the child begins to build up a small, select, and changing play group of 
two, three, or more members. From three to six years of age the child 
lives almost entirely in two groups,—the parental and the play group. 
In both, gregariousness, sympathy, and love, combine with playfulness 
to produce vital and stimulating social experiences. 

Upon entry into school the child’s play group increases rapidly in 


SOCIAL NATURE SI 


size. It is the play impulses, supported strongly by the gregarious reac- 
tions, that give the average child his greatest enjoyment in the early 
years of his school life. The socializing of school work is successful 
in part because it turns work into play and subordinates routine to a 
phase of play. Formerly the pupil studied what were to him the highly 
abstract subjects of “arithmetic,” “language,” “geography ;” the emphasis 
now is being placed on people and what they are doing. In each grade 
selected groups of people and their activities are the centers of attention, 
and arithmetic, language, geography are learned as secondary phases of 
school work which has become fascinating. Work becomes play, while 
the essentials of education, even routine, have become means to interesting 
ends, rather than dull, despised ends. 

The play groups of a child gradually take on the character of boys’ 
gangs and girls’ clubs. Then athletic teams and fraternal societies develop. 
It is in the team-work of the play group that the individual learns some 
of his most valuable social lessons. Where the family fails in inculcating 
a social principle, the team-work of a play group often succeeds. It is 
this team-play which teaches the individual to obey, to become a leader 
and to evaluate himself as a group member and a constructive force 
in society. 

A practical phase of the organization of the play spirit is found in 
intercollegiate athletics. The benefits are chiefly these: (1) Intercol- 
legiate athletics offer the excitement of a contest between trained op- 
ponents. (2) They develop a powerful group morale. What is more 
stimulating in this direction than twenty thousand students and alumni 
cheering an almost defeated team on to victory? (3) The ideal of phys- 
ical fitness combined with mental skill is given a worthy place in young 
people’s ideals. (4) Since the games are comprised mostly of a series 
of team plays, they train in self sacrifice and self-control. (5) Habits of 
coOperation are developed, and lasting friendships are established. 
(6) Training in making important decisions under stress of highly ex- 
citing circumstances is afforded. 

The evil effects of organized inter-collegiate athletics are also numer- 
ous. (1) They shift the prevailing centers of attention of a majority 
of the student body from study hall and class room to the athletic field; 
they take time from needed study. (2) They focus attention upon win- 
ning rather than upon playing well, thus perverting values. (3) They 
stimulate a few students to over-exertion, while the mass remain under- 
trained physically. (4) They produce bad blood between educational 


52 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





institutions with fundamentally similar aims.t® (5) Trick plays and 
winning by deceit are emphasized. 

The emphasis today is being placed upon eight hours for work, eight 
hours for sleep, and eight hours for leisure of which one-half is to be given 
over to amusements and recreation. Although this formula is not adopted 
rigidly it indicates that an increasing proportion of the life of the average 
person is being devoted to amusements and is producing a leisure time 
problem of serious proportions. The pace, stress, and complexity of 
modern urban life demand that regular hours daily be set aside for rec- 
reation. The questions arise: Does it matter how one plays? and, Is 
it anybody’s business how one spends his leisure hours? From the 
standpoint of group welfare it matters greatly how the individual plays; 
whether he dissipates or builds up his energies, for his loss or gain is 
the direct loss or gain of his groups. In the case of the young particu- 
larly, the nature of play means not only immediate tearing down or 
building up, but also the formation of lifelong habits. 

In this age commercial enterprise has provided amusements of all 
types and for all classes and ages of individuals. The motive is to make 
the most money, not to build better personalities. Play easily falls into 
routine patterns, and then becomes professionalized. In such forms as 
organized baseball it takes on some of the characteristics of strenuous 
work, with the “players” being bought and sold as economic commodities 
in the market. The commercial appeals that are being made to the play 
impulses and the resultant habits constitute social problems of vast 
moment. 

A community organization of play is to be commended, for each com- 
munity may provide for all its recreational needs through the partici- 
pation of its own members at a minimum of expense. In so doing, the 
play attitude may rise to its higher socialized levels, and moreover, con- 
tribute directly to the development of social consciousness and democracy. 
When a thousand people play together wholesomely with no profit motives 
entering in, they develop a common consciousness, a democratic spirit, 
and socialized attitudes. 


THE INQUISITIVE ATTITUDE 


Native psychic energy may be stimulated to activity by all phenomena 
that are moderately different from one’s common experiences. On the 
other hand, the usual does not attract special attention at all, while the 

* Cf. B, E. Ewer, College Study and College Life (Badger, 1918), Ch. XVII. 


SOCIAL NATURE ) 53 


wholly unusual paralyzes activity or causes the given organism to become 
fearful. But the somewhat different tends to release psychic energy. The 
instinctive elements in this process have been developed, too much it 
would seem, by McDougall.’ The desire for new experience is the 
basic element in the inquisitive attitude. 

Animals which have been attracted by sounds that are very strange 
have probably been decoyed, and consequently have sooner or later lost 
their lives. Those individuals, either animal or human, which are never 
attracted by anything that is new remain mediocre or else they retro- 
grade. Those who are aroused by stimuli that are moderately strange 
avoid violent destruction and at the same time escape decadence. A 
highly differentiated form of the moderately strange is represented by 
“sions of concealment or stealth,’ which immediately arrest attention and 
produce inquisitiveness. Individuals who manifest a reasonable degree of 
curiosity survive best. In primitive society the inquiring and hunting 
patterns are conspicuous. We still use the vocabulary of hunting and 
fishing. Says Weeks: 


We hunt for lost articles and “fish” for compliments. A man “hunts” a 
job. People make “killing” remarks.1§ 


Society seems to prefer persons with moderately inquiring minds. He 
who is overly inquiring becomes unpopular; he who never asks questions 
falls into obscurity. One of the discouraging elements of teaching is 
the pupil who never has any questions to ask, that is, who is mentally 
unresponsive. The person who attends to his own affairs and yet 
maintains an alert, active mind regarding social tendencies is rated 
highest. 

The inquisitive attitude results commonly in gossip but ranges up to 
scientific research and genuine intellectual study. Gossip illustrates in- 
quisitiveness in its simplest, least intelligent, and yet dynamic forms, 
while scholarship shows its powerful motivating character in the highest 
realms of reasoning and research. The statements of Edison indicate that 
his achievements have been reached as a result of an overwhelming urge 
to find satisfactory solutions to problems in the laboratory — a specialized 
expression of the desire for new experience. Finding answers to prob- 
lems is the culmination of the inquisitive attitude, and finding solutions 
to societary questions is perhaps the chief social result. 


Introduction to Social Psychology (Luce, 1914), pp. 57 ff. 
* The Control of the Social Mind (Appleton, 1923), p. 147. 


54 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





THE SCIENTIFIC ATTITUDE 


The scientific attitude is the highest form of inquisitiveness. Under 
no conditions will it permit, one to jump “to conclusions on hearsay, 
express dogmatic ‘opinions’ without knowledge, or give way to the 
emotional reactions of the crowd.” ’® The scientific attitude is one of in- 
dependent thinking, of discriminating between authorities, or experiment- 
ing and testing by objective methods until truth, the truth that is in 
people’s experiences, in their memories, in “the back of their heads” as 
well as the truth that is in objective numerical facts, is attained. 

Knowledge, education, schools, research laboratories,—these are some 
of the values to which the scientific attitude responds. The scientific 
attitude is generic to inquiry, invention, and the best types of leadership. 
It leads to all types of research. It is the best guarantee against error 
in human reactions. Its chief weakness, as well as strength, perhaps is 
in its impersonal character and in its seeming slowness to action. 


THE ACQUISITIVE ATTITUDE 


The tendency of psychic energy to organize itself into personal units 
leads to the concepts of “me” and “mine.’”’ The “mine” tendency denotes 
acquisitiveness. The acquisitive attitude is manifested very early in 
life. Childhood and adolescence abound with expressions of the impulse 
to make collections—of stamps, butterflies, dolls, marbles, birds’ eggs. 
This tendency continues through maturity; and to it there may be traced 
some of the world’s finest libraries and art galleries, as well as acquisitions 
of land, even landed estates. So strong and persistent is the acquisitive 
attitude, that men continue to accumulate riches long after they have 
acquired enough property for the needs of themselves and their children.?° 

Modern civilization owes its rise in part to private accumulations of 
wealth. It is reserve wealth which makes leisure from manual labor pos- 
sible; it is this leisure which has given some persons opportunities to 
make socially beneficial inventions. If all persons had to spend all their 
working time in satisfying the physical needs of life, there would be 
little leeway for social advance. 


iy B. Wolfe, Conservatism, Radicalism, and Scientific Method (Macmillan, 
1923), p. IO. 

* Dewey (Human Nature and Conduct, Holt, 1922, pp. 142, 143), connects 
creativeness with acquisitiveness. He says: “Speaking roughly we may say that 
native activity is both creative and acquisitive, creative as a process, acquisitive in 
that it terminates as a rule in some tangible product which brings the process to 
consciousness of itself,” 


SOCIAL NATURE 5s 


The urge to acquire property, especially land, is characteristic not only 
of the individual, but of the group. Monarchies have manifested the 
tendency to acquire territory. Some nations have spent themselves in 
widening their natural resources. Many of the most cruel wars that 
have been waged by monarchical governments have arisen from the 
nation-group weakness for more territory. When such governments are 
supplanted by real democracies, certain causes of war will be cut off. 
An international movement, such as that represented by the League of 
Nations, will justify its existence if it can substitute cultural achievement 
for territorial aggrandizement. 

Group control of the acquisitive attitude when it has become definitely 
intrenched in a social system of private property is exceedingly difficult.”? 
The acquisitive urge, once it develops momentum, knows no bounds. A 
few persons or coteries may secure control of a major portion of the 
wealth within a nation and use it arbitrarily and selfishly. In conse- 
quence socialism, syndicalism, bolshevism gain vast recruits from the 
propertyless classes. At once the property monopolists who are fearful 
of losing their control over the masses resort to repression, to false uses of 
patriotism, and generally set up the cry that no class control must be 
allowed to develop—it would be undemocratic—ignoring that they repre- 
sent a high concentration of class control. The fact that English lands 
have become concentrated in large estates that are owned by a very 
small proportion of the population and that the farmers have largely 
become a class of tenants leads to radical movements and belies England’s 
fair claim to being a democratic country. The United States began with 
no great concentration of wealth, but has in recent decades become so 
characterized, has developed classes with the business class largely in 
control, and other classes organizing in “blocs” to thwart the domination 
of the business class. 

To solve the problem two leading methods are proposed. On one side 
are the people who believe that acquisitive habits should be rooted up 
and that the government should own all rent-producing capital. On the 
other hand are the people who hold that the acquisitive nature is too-deep- 
seated to be eliminated; that it would not be wise to thwart it, even if 
it were possible; and that this basic acquisitiveness should be allowed to 
operate, but trained to an expression in harmony with public welfare. 
The undemocratic attitude and disrespect for law by vast corporate or 


“ The literature on the evils of acquisitiveness has become extensive. Cf. R. H. 
Tawney, The Acquisitive Society (Harcourt, Brace: 1921); J. M. Williams, Prin- 
ciples of Social-Psychology (Knopf, 1922), Part Il; J. M. Mecklin, An Introduction 
to Social Ethics (Harcourt, Brace: 1920), Ch. XVII. 


56 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





inherited bodies of wealth find themselves today matched by the undemo- 
cratic and dictatorship program of bolshevism. If civilization is going 
to survive the world-wide revolutionary and terrorist tendencies that 
are abroad, only a renaissance of respect for law based on social justice 
and love, beginning with the most economically powerful and ending with 
those who possess least, appears equal to the situation. In other words, 
the purely selfish aspects of acquisitiveness are likely to lead to both, 
personal and national disaster. } | 

Property has so many attractive forms, and its possession makes 
possible so many of the comforts of life and gives so much social power 
and status that it has become a leading social value in Western civilization. 
Accordingly the acquisitive attitude has developed until at times the 
social control of it has become hopeless. The acquisitive attitude has 
made civilization possible, and yet it may destroy civilization. It is 
developed largely through social heritage and current stimuli. If it is 
not socialized it bids fair to rend civilization in twain. 


THE COMBATIVE ATTITUDE 


Another native trait which builds itself into personal behavior is com- 
bativeness. An individual is energized whenever any obstacle hinders 
the operations of any impulsive, habitual, or attentive activity. The 
fighting tendency ®? produces concentration of the individual’s energies, 
and drives him ahead over obstacles.?* It is usually accompanied by a 
heightened, tense state of feeling tone, almost frantic in type at times, 
and again in the case of the cultured person, well under control and 
showing no objective manifestations. This exaggerated state of feeling 
is sometimes referred to as anger. In its crudest expressions, combative- 
ness shows itself in the snarl and rush of the dog, in the clenched and 
pugilistic fists of the boy, in the lynching atrocities of the mob, in the 
brutalities which are committed in the name of organized warfare. 

The combative attitude is in part a product of natural selection. In 
primitive groups the better fighters survived; the others perished. Under 
the existing environmental conditions, the “fightingest” tribes were the 
fittest to survive, and all others suffered extinction. Throughout long 


“The combative attitude, the pugnacious attitude, and the fighting attitude are 
used here synonymously. 


23 . ee e . . . 
The initial stages of combativeness are similar to those of repression as de- 


scribed in Chapter II; but in the case of combativeness the repression is usually 
overcome in some way or other. 


SOCIAL NATURE 57 


periods of time, combativeness in the physical sense was at a high survival 
premium. 

The combative attitude has been undergoing modifications. Its earliest 
expressions were immediate and destructive. If an animal is charging, 
kill it. If a man deliberately hinders your activities, down him. If a 
tribe wants your hunting grounds, annihilate it. Then temporary control 
was added; if you cannot destroy at once the animal, person, tribe, or 
nation that hinders your enterprises, bide your time, develop the attitude 
to destroy in the minds of your followers, and at what seems to be the 
opportune moment, rise up in an organized way and slay. 

Again, combativeness has led to the blood feud. If you cannot reach 
the person who has wronged you, then kill an innocent relative. As a 
result of these tendencies, an elaborate system of personal habits of 
revenge and destructiveness are established. Social habits or customs 
easily become organized out of personal habits of combative revenge; 
social institutions such as the family and neighborhood become involved, 
and the blood-feud originating perhaps in blunt combative impulses reaches 
the level of an imperious social custom. 

If you cannot exterminate, then hurt. Torture is an extreme form of 
combativeness in which the aggressor feels at least a definite physical 
superiority and in consequence administers punishment. Torture has 
been considered a satisfactory form of punishment, and as a result, jails 
and prisons have turned back their inmates to society in a more anti-social 
state of mind than they had on entering. The newly developed method 
is to allow the rigorous discipline of work serve as punishment and to set 
in motion processes for reforming habits. 

Although a heritage from the days of fang and claw, the fighting 
impulses, in modified forms, are essential to individual and group progress. 
In early days -they were commonly expressed in the physical combat 
between individuals. In the modern civilized nation-group, individuals as 
a rule do not resort to physical clash in order to settle disputes, but turn 
to discussion and argument and to “due process of law” in the organized 
courts. Thus their fighting energies are not used to destroy their fellow 
beings, but are diverted into intellectual contests. 

The combative impulses are undergoing intrinsic changes. Cognitive 
factors, such as an understanding of society, are transforming combative- 
ness into new habitual expressions. Organized love and service aims are 
setting combative human nature to fighting socially destructive factors 
such as sin, vice, delinquency. Social and educational control are assisting 


58 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





in sublimating combativeness from the direction of organized warfare 
between nations to organized war of the constructive forces of all nations 
against the destructive forces in these same nations. 

The struggle for existence in the biological world which takes place 
largely upon the plane of physical strength and cunning has a counterpart 
among humans in the struggle for food, position, power. Habit and 
custom are also organizing the quiet, constructive, pervasive influence of 
love and similar spiritual forces into helpful, educational, and religious ~ 
patterns that are in fundamental combat with militarism and ruthless 
forms of commercialism. As a class the “fittest” to survive are under- 
going an evolution from the lowest levels of brute strength to shrewd 
forms of mental efficiency and strength, and then to socialized personalities 
motivated by love. 

G. F. Nicolai, a daring German writer who was imprisoned by his 
government during the World War for his views and who was rescued 
from prison by aeroplane, holds that the ineradicable fighting impulses 
represent a survival of tendencies which at one time were useful but 
which are now positively dangerous.*4 The need for the transformation 
of these impulses is imperative. One species of animals after another 
has died out before it could change its inherited impulses. Hence, the 
question is pertinent: Will mankind die out because it cannot change 
the fighting impulses? Or can it turn the fighting energies of individuals 
into personal habits and social customs of a helpful rather than a harmful 
nature? 

The combative attitude is a basic psychic factor in business competition, 
political campaigning, social reform, and courtship under competitive 
circumstances. It is a dynamo which engenders tremendous forces in 
intellectual realms. It contributes to the pleasure of the athlete and of 
the spectator. It leads to contests between ideals. It has been organized 
into war patterns so extensively and for so long that war is thought to 
be based largely on inherited impulses. It may be that man possesses 
innate impulses causing him to strike another person or to fight as a 
personal matter, but the evidence indicates that there are no human 
innate tendencies “that find their natural expression in waging modern 
war, which means seeking to destroy at Jong range a perfectly impersonal 
and unseen foe, by means of intricate machinery, and for reasons either 
unknown or largely foreign to the fighter’s own purposes.2> Waging 


*The Biology of War (Century, 1918). 
* Clarence M. Case, “Instinctive and Cultural Factors in Group Conflicts,” Amer. 
Jour. of Sociology,’ XXVIII: 9. 


SOCIAL NATURE 59 


modern war is so far from being instinctive that it “has to be taught 
laboriously and systematically by such atrocious devices as the bayonet 
drill,’ which in itself represents a gross violation of most of man’s 
instinctive tendencies.2® War has to be taught as evidenced by the efforts 
of “those literary patriots who are always ready to shed their last drop 
of ink in the cause of their country.” ?7 

When war is gone, there will be need for the fighting spirit. Then 
individuals and groups will still have to fight personal and social evils. 
They will assail not the best people of the enemy state, but the evil in 
all peoples. The struggles against social evils will always demand, as 
far as one can now see, the socialized exercise of combativeness. The 
combative attitude needs reorganization so that it will no longer support 
war and militarism as leading social institutions. When excess emphasis 
on property, territory, selfish individual and national power is being 
cut down then the combative attitude may simultaneously be reorganized 
against sin, vice, and crime rather than against races and peoples; it may 
then further the development of wholesome social attitudes and values, 
and contribute to progress. 


THE PACIFIST ATTITUDE 


The pacifist attitude is probably as fundamental to human nature as 
the combative attitude. Leading to peaceful pursuits it does not attract 
the attention that combativeness does. It originates partly in the desire 
for security, partly in the derived desires to construct, to do useful things, 
to serve other persons usefully. Persons of unperturbed temperament 
and those of agreeable dispositions, those of fine inhibitions, have exem- 
plified it most and best. Not only in the early years of life but as maturity 
wears on, impulses become organized into ways of peace and paths of 
pleasantness. 

The instinctive bases of the pacific attitude well up when shooting 
and murder are suggested to the ordinary person as normal conduct for 
him, or to the new recruit when fighting requires him to bayonet dying 
men or to kill women and children. The training in hating the “enemy” 
that the soldier goes through before he can kill with cold steel is convincing 
evidence showing that the pacifist attitude is as fundamental as the 
killing attitude. But mankind has built “glory” and “patriotism” around 


_™ Case, ibid. Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct, p. 113, gives a similar explana- 
tion as follows: “Social conditions rather than an old and unchangeable Adam have 
generated war.” 


* Case, ibid. 


60 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





the latter so generally that the importance of the former attitude has been 
overlooked. When put to the supreme test in time of national war, 
its exponents are treated with ignominy and incarcerated. It may be as 
full of the “do and die” spirit, as pugnaciousness, but for constructive 
rather than destructive purposes. 


THE RIVALROUS ATTITUDE 


The rivalrous attitude arises whenever persons compete to attain a 
level of superiority or of power or possession. We do not feel rivalrous 
toward a Shakespeare or a Lincoln because such men are distinctly above 
our level; moreover, they are not living. Rivalry is non-sympathetic and 
partisan; it resorts to chicanery and secrecy. It plots. A rival is seldom 
fair, and very rarely generous. The rivalrous attitude attains satisfaction 
when one experiences a superiority over competitors.2* Therefore it is 
never completely satisfied; there are always competitors and new levels 
of superiority to attain. 

The rivalrous attitude grows out of personal contests for selfish pos- 
session and creates sentiments of jealousy. It includes emulation or the 
desire to equal or excel without attempting to unhorse an opponent. It 
includes mirrored behavior, for it prompts one “to do whatever another 
does that wins praise.” 2° Sometimes it is kept alive “by the fear that 
some one else will not play fair.’ *° 


THE SOCIALIZED ATTITUDE 


The socialized attitude is basic to all other attitudes. It means that all the 
attitudes of a person are organized so that he feels, thinks, and acts, 
consciously and unconsciously, in harmony with the needs of other per- 
sons. This codperation leads persons to act together, but not alike. It 
creates a unity of different purposes and abilities, but not a uniformity. 
It involves intrinsic changes in a person’s nature leading to social self- 
control, that is, the control of self in line with the needs of others. It 
also means that a person develops an increasing sense of social responsi- 
bility.** 


Gas partie Principles of Social Psychology (Knopf, 1922), Ch. II. 
+ Pp. 10. 

"A. D. Weeks, The Control of the Social Mind (Appleton, 1923), p. 152. 
* See Chapter XX on “Socialization.” 


SOCIAL NATURE 61 





CHANGES IN ATTITUDE 


Personal and social progress is a matter of changes in attitudes. If 
we can find out how to change attitudes, we shall have the key to progress. 
In any human field, for example, in the industrial field, “all work may 
become artistic,” with an appropriate change of attitudes and values.*? 
Since one’s attitudes are influenced largely “by the groups in which 
one desires status and recognition” ** a knowledge of group psychology 
becomes all-important. Imperceptible modifications of a single attitude 
or a few attitudes at a time rather than a complete change seems to be 
the rule. Hence, C. A. Ellwood’s thesis that human nature is one of the 
most modifiable things in the world rings true.*4 

Attitudes, however, are difficult to change if they have originated in 
or been connected with emotional experiences. Situations producing 
these experiences thus require careful research, for in them is found the 
chief difficulties when changes in attitudes are contemplated. All indi- 
vidual and social changes come through personal expertences. 


PE GLEE Bs 


1. Human nature culminates in attitudes, that is, tendencies to act 
toward or against some object. 

2. The object toward which a social attitude is expressed becomes a 
positive or negative social value. 

3. As a result of being born and reared in social groups, human beings 
develop a general social attitude, i.e. a respect and need for social 
stimuli and for social response. 

4. The gregarious attitude arises from “herd” impulses and is a spe- 
cialized form of the general social attitude. 

5. The sex attitude leads to such extremes as commercialized vice and 
the purest types of love and chastity. 

6. The parental attitude produces the finest expressions of self-sacrifice 
and upholds the family which is society’s institution of primary 
importance. 

7. The play attitude develops around interesting and stimulating prob- 
lems and makes work agreeable. 


*W. I. Thomas, The Unadjusted Girl (Little, Brown: 1923), p. 257. 
*F, B. Reuter, “The Social Attitude,” Jour. of Applied Sociology, VII: 100. 
* Jour. of Applied Sociology, VII: 229. 


62 


fh WN 


Ww 


nw 


FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


. The inquisitive attitude is built up by environmental factors that are 


somewhat but not wholly different from past experience; its high- 
est expression is the scientific attitude. 


. The acquisitive attitude develops around material and spiritual fac- 


tors which afford personal power. 


. The combative attitude develops in and through reactions against 


obstacles which hinder the impulses, habits, desires, or other | 
tendencies. 


. The pacific attitude is essentially one of evolutionary constructiveness. 
. The rivalrous attitude involves competition for recognition. 
. The socialized attitude is an organization of all the other attitudes 


for social purposes. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. What is a social attitude? 

. What is a social value? 

. What is the general social attitude? 
. What are (a) gregarious attitudes? 


(b) sex attitudes? 

(c) parental attitudes? 
(d) play attitudes? 

(e) inquisitive attitudes? 
(f) acquisitive attitudes? 
(g) combative attitudes ? 
(h) pacifist attitudes? 
(1) rivalrous attitudes? 
(j) socialized attitudes? 


. How are attitudes changed? 


PROBLEMS 


. Why has the basic social nature of human beings been so commonly 


overlooked ? 


. Does gregariousness exist in the hermit? 
. Give a new illustration of the operation of the gregarious tendency. 
. Why do the working classes on holidays rush to the places where 


the crowds are? 


. Why is the country considered dull by so many people? 
. Why do people become “chummy” when sitting around the hearth 


fire? 


. Why does a prisoner take a special interest in a flower ? 


SOCIAL NATURE 63 


. Why do little children talk aloud to themselves? 

. For what different reasons do elderly people talk aloud to themselves? 
. Explain: “It is lonesome to be a college president.” 

. Why should one alternate between friendship and solitude? 

. “Ts a college fraternity fraternal ?” 

. What are the leading forces that are opposing the parental impulses? 
. How far is it true that general life does not rise above the level of 


family life? 


. How do you rate the slogan: An automobile before owning a home? 
. Why is it work for a mason to pile up brick, and play for a small boy 


to pile up blocks? 


. Why is work hard and play easy to a child even when the latter re- 


quires the expenditure of more energy? 


. Why is it play to a boy to clear brush from a lot for a baseball 


diamond and work to clear the same lot at his parent’s command? 


. What is the chief social value in play? 

. What is curiosity? 

. What is the relation between curiosity and scientific research? 

. What is the chief value of the acquisitive impulses ? 

. Beyond what limits is it wrong to indulge the acquisitive impulses? 
. Why do “some men begin to enjoy giving away, late in life, what they 


have given their best years to accumulate ?” 


. Is it necessary to get angry in order to fight well? 

. What impulses impel a person to run to see a fight? 

. What is righteous indignation? 

. What has rendered bodily combat unnecessary in order to settle 


disputes ? 


. Is anger a good guide to action? 
. What would happen if the fighting impulses should die out? 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Baldwin, J. M., Social and Ethical Interpretations (Macmillan, 1906), 


Choy: 


Cooley, C. H., Social Organization (Scribners, 1909), Chs. I, II. 
Ellwood, C. A., An Introduction to Social Psychology (Appleton, 1917), 


Ch. IX. 


Gross, K., The Play of Animals (Appleton, 1911). 





The Play of Man (Appleton, 1901). 


Hetherington and Muirhead, Social Purpose (Macmillan, 1918), Ch. V. 


64 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


Howerth, I. W., “The Great War and the Instinct of the Herd,” Intern. 
Jour. of Ethics, XXTX: 174-87. 

Kropotkin, P., Mutual Aid, a Factor in Evolution (Knopf, 1917). 

McDougall, William, An Introduction to Social Psychology (Luce, 1914), 
Part 10)'ChV IIT. 

Patrick, G. T. W., The Psychology of Relaxation (Houghton Mifflin, 
1916), Chs. II, IV. 

Rainwater, C. E., The Play Movement in the United States (Univ. of 
Chicago Press, 1921), Ch. V. 

Ribot, Th., The Psychology of the Emotions (Scribners, 1911), Part II, 
Shey: 

Seashore, C. E., Psychology m. Daily Life (Appleton, 1913), Ch. I. 

Smith, W. R., An Introduction to Educational Sociology (Houghton 
Mifflin, 1917), Ch. V. 

Todd, A. J., Theories of Social Progress (Macmillan, 1918), Chs. IV, V. 


CHAPTER VI 
MIRRORED NATURE 


OCIAL nature is partly reflected nature, for every social group is 

a set of mirrors. Wherever one may turn, he sees himself, or 
elements of himself, reflected in the minds of other persons. This leads 
to socially reflected attitudes. Friends, strangers, and enemies constitute 
different types of social mirrors. Of course the reflection is rarely true; 
it varies with the points of view of the different human reflectors. A 
friend is likely to reflect magnified images of one’s virtues, and minified 
images of one’s weaknesses. A rival or foe reflects one’s traits in exactly 
the opposite fashion, while a stranger may reflect blurred or distorted 
images of all one’s traits. Every person moves continually among social 
mirrors; each reflecting his actions according to its own nature and its 
relationship of friend, stranger, or enemy to the person concerned. 

The attitudes of every person are continually conditioned by the opinions 
of other persons and especially by the reflections of himself that he thinks 
he sees in the minds of others. One may be misled, for friends give back 
a too favorable reflection and make one too satisfied with himself. Enemies 
or strangers on the other hand often give a person with a sympathetic 
temperament the false impression that he is a failure and plunge him 
into despondency. It is necessary therefore that one be on his guard 
continually against being deluded by the images of himself in the minds 
of others. At every turn of life, the choices and actions of a person are 
influenced by the more or less distorted images of himself reflected by 
his fellows. 


TYPES OF REFLECTED ATTITUDES 


The strenuous struggles for medals, honor, positions, are partly due 
to efforts to improve the social reflections which one receives. To win 
promotion means among other things to receive the favorable glances of 
loved ones and friends, and also, unfortunately, the jealous appraisals of 
competitors. A military officer reports that a grave weakness of the 
army and navy is the mania for being promoted. Because it raises him 

*The earliest extended analysis of socially reflective attitudes was made by 


C. H. Cooley, Human Nature and the Social Order (Scribners, 1902), pp. 152, 164 ff. 
65 


66 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


in the estimation of others the officer seeks promotion above all else; it 
becomes a main topic of secret conversation and even open discussion. 
For the same reason the psychological fallacy of militarism develops, 
namely, preparedness makes for war, i.e., the army officer unconsciously 
wishes for war because of the opportunities for promotion it brings. 

At first many a recruit has cared nothing for his regiment. After a 
few weeks training he has learned to value the opinions of himself which 
are held by his comrades. Within a few months he becomes not only 
willing but anxious to hazard life for his regiment. At first he ignored 
the reflections of himself that he saw in the eyes of his fellow “rookies,” 
but in a relatively short time he came to value them above everything. A 
vital explanation of this change in attitudes is in the fact that the soldier 
has changed groups; the regiment when he first entered it was composed 
of strangers. As these strangers changed to acquaintances, many of them 
to friends, their reflections of him became his supreme concern. 

“Watch the change as the column, marching at route step, swings into 
some small French town where children and an old woman or two 
observe the passing army,” 
World War. “Every man swings into step, shoulders are thrown back, 
and extra distances between ranks close automatically. Some one is 
watching them.’ Among these soldiers there was one “who stowed some- 


where about him for these occasions a battered silk hat. We let him 


wear it in small towns! The inhabitants stared at him and laughed. He 
was happy and made the whole company happy.” In this instance, the 
colored soldier imagined the social reflections of his actions to be more 
admiring than they actually were and developed thereby an exaggerated 
reflected attitude of himself. 

College athletes explain that the reflections of themselves in the eyes 
of the spectator-crowd upon the bleachers is an impelling factor in their 
achievements. In the hope of election to an honor society pupils are 
stimulated, not because of the concrete benefits to be derived, but on ac- 
count of the standing which the coveted honor gives, that is to say, be- 
cause of the dazzling reflections of one’s self which the social mirrors 


said the officer of a colored regiment in the ~ 


present. This explains the strong objections some educators feel toward — 
prizes, medals, and awards. These become the goal rather than self or | 


social improvement. “Winning” is emphasized and “playing well” is 
overlooked. 

A young man who does not approve of missions attends a church service 
in order to please a young woman, who is interested in missionary enter- 


' 


prises. An offering for missions is to be taken, but the habitual attitude — 


MIRRORED NATURE 67 





of the young man is not to give. Then he thinks of the reflection of his 
stingy attitude in the mind of the young lady, and straightway he makes 
one of the largest subscriptions of the evening: he takes great pleasure 
in the reflection of his liberality which he thinks he beholds in the pleased 
countenance of the young woman at his side. Two misjudgments had 
occurred, for the young woman was pleased not so much at her friend’s 
liberality as with the idea that he had come to believe in missionary enter- 
prises and that she had had a part in bringing about a fundamental change 
in his religious life. Courtship phenomena are largely stimulated by 
imagined social reflections. A temporary shift of attitude is often as- 
sumed to be a basic change of character, and many a young woman flatters 
herself that she has “reformed” a suitor, whereas he has but sought a 
favorable social reflection from one who has stirred in him romantic 
love. 
An active church worker says: 


It was my social mirror self which manifested itself to me last Sabbath, 
when I made my yearly pledge to the church. If I had made it by myself and 
sent it to the church treasurer, I would have lowered it, in view of my present 
circumstances, but I was called upon by two prominent members of the 
church and wishing to see a generous self reflected back to me from their 
eyes, I increased my annual pledge. 


In this instance another principle is indicated, namely, that personal solici- 
tation in behalf of any cause is most effective because it appeals strongly 
to the craving for a favorable social reflection. 

A business man boasts of a shrewd transaction to an approving friend. 
Talking with another friend of stricter principles, he refrains from 
mentioning the questionable action. In the first instance, he could expect 
that the reflection of himself would be flattering; in the latter case it 
would have been unfavorable; in both cases he was guided by concern 
for his social mirror personality. Thus, two-facedness may emanate from 
the desire to receive a pleasing reflection of one’s self from more than one 
source, even from those holding contradictory moral standards. 

A politician gives freely to philanthropic enterprises in order to elicit 
pleasing reflections of himself from his townspeople. Scheming to create 
favorable reflections of one’s self in order to gratify one’s ego is bad, 
but less so than the deliberate establishment of a stock of such reflections 
for use in securing individual power, position, and advantage over others. 
Yet both procedures are common, and for their exploitation elaborate 
psychological techniques have been worked out. 

At a meeting which was held for money raising purposes, the chair- 


68 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





man called for subscriptions of five hundred dollars. At that moment a 
man of means happened to raise his hand to his head. The chairman 
saw the hand, elatedly called out the name of the man, and the audience 
cheered. The wealthy individual had planned to contribute one hundred 
dollars, but rather than shatter the splendid reflection of himself he re- 
ceived from his neighbors and friends he cheerfully paid the larger 
subscription. Thus, the hope of cutting a fine figure stimulates one to 
be more generous and social in his attitudes than he would naturally be. 

In Rome one does as the Romans do, thereby garnering more approv- 
ing glances and smiles than would otherwise be the case; at least, he thus 
safeguards himself against unfavorable reflections. A wide-awake immi- 
grant in the United States quickly adopts American ways—impelled in 
part by concern for social reflections of his personality. A public school 
teacher states: 


As a child of five I became acquainted in the kindergarten with a colored 
boy. Our friendship grew rapidly. I admired the black face, and the small, 
tight curls. One day my father laughed heartily at me when he saw me with 
my colored playmate. I felt hurt and thereafter avoided the colored boy © 
through the unpleasant reflection in my father’s eyes of my association with 
the Negro child. 


In this way the origin of race prejudice on the part of any person is often. 
found in the unfavorable social reflections of himself that he experiences 
when he associates with persons of a different race. 


SELF RESPECT AND SOCIAL REFLECTED ATTITUDES 


The self respect of an individual often depends on maintaining the 
respect of other people.? If he loses the esteem of his friends, he is 
likely to lose his own self respect. “I would enjoy riding a bicycle,” says 
a middle-aged woman, “but the reflection of myself in the eyes of my 
friends would be unfavorable and hence I abstain.” Personal conduct 
with reference to the conventions of life is touched up at certain points 
and held back at other places by one’s mirrored nature. 

Many a child’s self respect goes up or down according to the social 
reflections of himself. If these are favorable his superiority complex 
is stimulated; if they are unfavorable, his sense of inferiority and the 

2E. A. Ross holds that self-consciousness is our consciousness of others; of 


others, however, as noticing and appraising one’s self. Principles of Sociology 
(Century, 1920), p. 114. 


MIRRORED NATURE 69 


mechanism of withdrawal may create the imaginative introspective 
type of personality. A striking case in point is given by E. W. 
Burgess.® 


One day when Mary was eleven years old, she and her two sisters attended 
a birthday party. When it came time to choose partners for the supper party 
every girl was provided for except Mary. The hostess said to the odd little 
boy (the rest were already paired off), “Now, Jimmy, there’s Mary, take her.” 
Jimmy sullenly replied, “That homely old pug-nosed thing? I guess not.” 
Mary’s dreams were shattered—her little ship had gone on the rocks. She 
was hurt, terribly wounded. Needless to say, that was the last party she ever 
attended. Her two sisters laughed at the incident, and made fun of her at 
home. This aggravated her still more. 

Mary made few friends; she felt herself odd, out of the group. She devel- 
oped a taste for reading, and built about herself a world of her own, in which 
she and the “nice” characters in the books lived in an atmosphere of rosy 
pleasantness. She would have little to do with her family—they received none 
of her confidences—and she made no friends. This sensitive little girl with- 
drew into a world of her own making and there found the happiness which 
she longed for. 


“Tt takes all my income,” said a certain congressman, “to keep up with 
my fool neighbors.” * We spend a great deal of money, not for things 
that we actually need, but to keep up “appearances” and hence to guar- 
antee favorable “reflections” of ourselves. Fashion racing® cannot be 
explained without reference to the influence of social reflections and the 
highly competitive relations that exist between them. 

A housewife who could not afford to use ice secured an ice-card and 
put it in the window, but always after the ice wagon had passed her 
house. She wanted her neighbors to think that she bought ice. In this 
way the world of pretense and sham has been built up—chargeable largely 
to the craving to cut a fine figure in the minds of neighbors. 

For a similar reason a child in school often will study not to learn but 
in order to recite well. The sudden interest of the growing adolescent 
in the cleanliness of his neck and ears is a sure sign that he is solicitous 
about his image in the eyes of some girl. His mood changes from de- 
jection to hilarity as the reflection of himself in her eyes changes from 
unworthy to worthy; thus social reflection controls of this type are often 
more effective than parental controls in the discipline of youth. A young 
man relates : 

"“The Study of the Delinquent as a Person,” Amer. Jour. of Sociology, 
XXVIII: 668. 


*T. N. Carver, Principles of National Economy (Ginn, 1921), p. 70. 
®See the chapter on “Fashion Imitation” for explanation of this process. 


70 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


At the age of ten I found myself considered the black sheep of the family. 
Because of this reputation, other boys envied me. Even my elders sometimes 
made complimentary remarks about my startling conduct. On more than one 
occasion I overheard my parents describe my pranks to their friends, and then 
I would hear them all laugh loudly, and I would swell with pride. Many 
references were made to my actions in a more or less approving way. From 
these experiences I gained tavorable impressions as, “Oh! isn’t he a clever 
rascal!”” Consequently, I began deliberately to act the part of a black sheep; 
and some of the things which I did would not read well here. I was saved 
from going to the dogs because our family (a minister’s family) moved to 
another town where my friends—especially one girl friend—did not consider 
that the black sheep should be envied. The reflection of my dare-devil actions 
no longer had a halo around it, and I changed my attitude. 


The role that the social reflections which a child receives directly and 
indirectly from his elders in determining his moral standards is little sus- 
pected by these elders, especially from the standpoint of the reflections 
generated by indirect suggestion. A student reports: 


When I was to give an illustration of my social mirror self, I chose the best 
example of which I could think. When I was trying to decide whether or 
not to use this particular illustration, it occurred to me that the only reason - 
I was unwilling to use it was because of the unfavorable reflection of myself 
which it would produce in the mind of my instructor. 


Hence in the very process of choosing an illustration, the social mirror 
self has interfered. In a similar way, anticipated social reflections exert 
the determining influence in the hundred and one decisions of everyday 
life. In purchasing a pair of shoes, for example, who has not found 
himself choosing a tight pair of shoes in preference to a comfortable pair, 
for the sake of the “looks” and what is the “looks” except a composite 
of anticipated social reflections of one’s self ? 

The development of character clearly depends upon the nature of one’s 
social mirrors, or associates. Children and adolescents who are active- 
minded and of sensitive temperament are slaves to the reflections of their 
acts which they see in the human mirrors among which they move. 
The psychological process is primarily this: The favorable reflection of 
either a good act or a bad act is a stimulus to repeat this act, and this 
repetition leads directly to habit formation—the psychological essence of 
character. 

A person continually experiences a conflict of socially reflected selves : 
out of such conflicts are produced the phenomena of conscience. Since he 
cares more for the reflections of his acts which he receives from friends 
than from strangers or enemies, and from his closest friends than from 
casual ones, he shows as a rule the best phases of his nature to his friends, 


MIRRORED NATURE m1 





particularly his dearest friends, and his worst nature to his enemies, and 
is likely to be careless about the impressions which he makes upon 
strangers. 

As a rule a person is affected most by the reflections of himself which 
come from those who are like-minded. It was this point which Hume 
doubtless had in mind when he said: “The praises of others never give 
us as much pleasure unless they concur with our own opinion.... A 
mere soldier little values the character of eloquence . . . Or a merchant, 
of learning.” The explanation of this statement is found in the fact 
that the soldiers have superiors who belittle eloquence, and the merchant 
looks up to “captains of industry,” who condemn the academic. The 
first finds himself reprimanded for much speaking, and the latter discovers 
that he is held in derision for much theorizing. 

Flattery illustrates the socially reflective process in one of its most 
aggressive forms. Posing is a leading unfortunate method of courting 
the god of social approval. Bashfulness and reticence are often indicative 
of a false degree of sensitiveness to the disapproval of others, and dis- 
closes an abnormal and almost pathological set of attitudes. Vanity is a 
product of a continual and habitual over-estimation of the favorable char- 
acter of the social reflections of one’s activities. The “vain cannot take 
his merits for granted,” but pines away if he does not hear himself 
praised with some degree of regularity.® It is a false estimate of the 
social reflections which they receive that causes some persons to “rear 
useless monuments to themselves.” Our daily choices, unimportant and 
great, are affected by social reflections or anticipated reflections. Life 
aims, whether missionary or mercenary, fall into the same category. In 
one case the hope is that of pleasing God, and the other that of securing 
approval of the socially powerful. 

Penology has often used the principle of the socially reflected self. The 
use of the scarlet letter was intended to give the guilty party a continu- 
ously unfavorable reflection of himself wherever he went. The stocks 
and pillory were in part to serve similar purposes. A warden in offering 
to give a prisoner ordinary clothing in place of the regular stripes because 
of good conduct is seeking to use the appeal to social approval. 

Mirrored attitudes vary with the sexes. “Girls live so much in their im- 
agination of how they appeal to others;”* and boys only to a small 
degree except when under the influence of the mating impulses. The fact 


*E. A. Ross points out that vanity is preoccupation with one’s reflected self on 
the part of the light-draft minds (Principles of Sociology, p. 116). 
™Ross, ibid., p. I19. 


72 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





that women are more susceptible to social images than are men is due 
partly to woman’s more sympathetic nature, to the experiences of mother- 
hood, and to the fact that she has had a more limited sphere of activities 
and hence has had to fall back upon small social groups for stimulation. 

From the foregoing discussions it will be seen that socially reflected 
attitudes have several basic factors. First, there is the postulated social 
group, that is, two or more persons in communication. Second, there is 
either an imagined or real or anticipated reflection of one’s action as 
gathered from the reactions or anticipated reactions of one or several 
persons.’ Third, this reflection is evaluated in terms of the individual’s 
store of habitual reactions toward life, or of his character. Fourth, the 
evaluation leads to a sense of pride, shame, or indifference. The all- 
powerful influence of social reflections is due to the basic social nature of 
all persons, to the fact that they are so largely group made, and to the 
social environments in which they are born and matured. 


REFLECTED ATTITUDES OF GROUPS 


Groups also have their socially reflective attitudes; the reactions of 
groups to many extra-group stimuli, are due to the reflections or possible 
reflections from the members of other groups. In the Declaration of 
Independence, Jefferson wrote that, “a decent respect to the opinion of © 
mankind” required that our forefathers should make a statement of the 
causes which impelled them to revolt. At the beginning of the World 
War each large nation hastened to give its reasons for declaring war and 
tried to justify itself in the eyes of the world. In 1914, all the leading 
nations explained their part in the war on defensive grounds. 

In 1922, the motion picture industry employed Will Hays to create a 
new procedure whereby the industry might get a more favorable reflec- 
tion of itself from the public. Political parties, through their leaders, are 
repeatedly playing for favorable impressions. Colleges and universities 
are sensitive to the “reflections” of possible generous patrons. 

The appearance of socially reflected attitudes explains partially the 
influence of the gang upon the boy, of the fraternity upon the student, 
of the afternoon bridge party upon the débutante, of the labor union upon 
the industrial recruit, of the board of directors upon the foreman or the 
clerk, of any occupational group upon its members. To an amazing 
degree social reflected attitudes determine behavior, both of the individual 
and the group. 

°C. H. Cooley, Human Nature and the Social Order, p. 152. 


[3. 
14. 


Aw 


MIRRORED NATURE 73 


PRINCIPEES 


. The behavior of an individual is continually being reflected to him 


from the mental reactions of persons whom he contacts. 


. Behavior is often reflected too favorably or too unfavorably. 
. Human choices are greatly influenced by anticipated social reflections. 
. When a person changes groups, the types of social reflections are apt 


to be different, and the person’s standards will be shifted. 


. Personal solicitation is superior to the impersonal types, for the 


social reflections that one receives are more powerful. 


. To schemingly create favorable reflections of one’s self corrupts 


character, 


. Anticipated favorable reflections stimulate one to more generous 


responses than would otherwise be the case. 


. Pretense and sham are often inspired by the desire for favorable 


social reflections. 


. Members of primary groups are more powerful reflectors than mem- 


bers of intermediate and general groups. 


. Mirrored reflections largely determine moral standards, particularly 


of children. 


. The development of character depends upon the nature of the social 


mirrors that surround the individual. 


. Favorable reflections lead to repetition of a given response and hence 


to habituation. 
Favorable or unfavorable reflections cause pride or shame respectively. 
Groups seek the favorable reflections of other groups, especially of 
those groups whose judgments are rated high. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. Explain: “Every group is a set of mirrors.” 
. Distinguish between the reflection of one’s self in the eyes of a 


friend, and of an enemy. 


. Why is a personal appeal for a subscription to a worthy cause more 


effective than an appeal by letter? 


. How is race prejudice due to socially reflected attitudes? 
. How far is fashion racing related to socially reflected attitudes ? 
. How far does the growth of character depend on socially reflected 


attitudes ? 


74 


FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





Ve 
8. 


Am PWN 


Why are social reflections unscientific guides? 
Illustrate: Groups possess socially reflective attitudes. 


PROBLEMS 


. Give an illustration of socially reflected behavior. 


What causes a little boy to become ashamed of wearing curls? 
Why does the average boy dislike dishwashing ? 


. What is the chief cause of bashfulness ? 
. Who are more sensitive to social reflections, men or women? 
. In what different ways do social reflections affect a pupil’s recitations 


in his classes? 


. Is gregariousness or social reflection the greater factor in arousing 


the desire of a college girl “to make a sorority?” 


. Are the wealthy or the poor more sensitive to social reflections of 


their behavior ? 


. Would you have achieved much if no one had ever expected anything 


of your 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Bohannon, E. W., “The Only Child,” Pedagogical Seminary, V: 475-96. 
Burnham, W. H., “The Group as a Stimulus to Mental Activity,” Science, 


XXXII: 761-67. 


Cooley, C. H., Human Nature and the Social Order (Scribners, 1922), 


Chs, Vive 


Leopold, L., Prestige (London, 1913). 
Ross, E. A., Principles of Soctology (Century, 1920), pp. 114-120. 
Veblen, T., The Theory of the Leisure Class (Macmillan, 1912), Chs. 


II-IV. 


Williams, J. M., Principles of Social Psychology (Knopf, 1922), Ch. II. 


CHAPTER VII 
MIRTHFUL NATURE 


OCIAL nature is mirthful, due to the fact that behavior is not always 
appropriate ; does not always fit the given circumstances. Mirth mani- 
fests itself continually in the daily life of all normal persons; it appears to 
be essential to normal personality ; it is an element in physical and mental 
health; it is common to social group life; it is a social corrective; it is a 
socializing force. Naturally, then, many of the world’s leading thinkers, 
from Aristotle to Bergson, have pondered over its nature. 


THEORIES OF MIRTHFULNESS 


According to Aristotle, comedy is an imitation of the characteristics of 
a lower type than represented by the imitator. The laughable is something 
degrading in the object or person at which one laughs—this is known as 
the theory of degradation. Aristotle does not explain, however, why the 
lower or degrading factors in life stimulate mirthfulness, and underesti- 
mates the importance of other elements. 

Hobbes developed the theory of superiority, which is partly correlative 
to Aristotle’s explanation. According to Hobbes, laughter is the result of 
an expansion of feeling which is brought on by the realization of one’s 
superiority over the person, or thing, or situation at which he laughs. But 
a realization of superiority does not always lead to mirthfulness; there are 
evidently important factors which this theory does not disclose. In 
principle, Addison’s theory is similar to that of Hobbes, namely, that 
pride is the chief cause of laughter. 

Kant explained mirthfulness on the basis of nwllificatton of expectation, 
that is, laughter arises from the sudden transformation of a strained ex- 
pectation into nothing. This interpretation implies the welling up of 
neural energy toward a certain goal which is suddenly removed, thus 
putting the individual in an unusual predicament; it is a subjective explana- 
tion which does not indicate why it is that sometimes the sudden trans- 
formation of a strained expectation produces laughter and sometimes sor- 
row or anger, , 

The theory of incongrusty was advanced by Schopenhauer. Laughter 

75 


76 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


is caused by the sudden realization of an incongruity between a conception 
and the real object with which it 1s connected. Of the theories that have 
been so far mentioned, Schopenhauer’s seems to be the most basic, for it 
analyzes mirthfulness as a psychological process with objective factors. 

Herbert Spencer’s idea that laughter indicates an effort which suddenly 
encounters a void is not fundamentally different from Kant’s, while 
Sully’s statement that laughter is due to a sudden release from a strained 
and tense situation, is another form of Kant’s explanation. Bergson ex-. 
presses the belief that laughter is primarily caused by the appearance of 
mechanical inelasticity in human life, which is another way of viewing 
Schopenhauer’s incongruity explanation. Weeks declares that “when a 
man has only one idea, that idea is as serious as can be; when he laughs 
he is virtually saying that he has had another idea.” These single theory 
discussions of laughter are enlightening but partial. The most synthetic 
treatment of the subject is that by Dr. Sidis,? which is extensively illus- 
trated, but is not entirely in harmony with the conclusions of the latest 
psychological researches.? 


ELEMENTARY BASES OF MIRTHFUL ATTITUDES 


The foregoing discussion reveals the complex nature of mirthful | 


attitudes. They are characterized by distinctive physical reactions. An 
examination of hearty laughter shows that at least ninety per cent of the 
subjects were enjoying at the time a fair degree of physical health and 
mental exuberance. If an individual has worked long hours of tedious 
labor without sleep, if he has recently suffered serious financial losses, if 
loved ones are dangerously ill, then it appears that the ordinary causes of 
laughter do not produce mirthful behavior. It is in the most playful and 
the most exuberant hours of life that mirthful attitudes flourish best. The 
joy-in-living spirit of a group of girls easily bubbles over into ripples of 
silly laughter. The exuberant laughter of boys may easily be accounted 
for in a similar way. 

Relief from strained situations sometimes produces mirthful behavior. 
Observe children released from long hours of study and recitation, rush 
forth from school buildings with peals of joy. Sudden release from 
either physical or mental strain may be counted one of the simpler causes 
of laughter. Exhaustion when unexpectedly relieved may result in vio- 


* The Control of the Social Mind. (Appleton, 1923), p. 177. 

* The Psychology of Laughter (Appleton, 1913). 

*For other extended discussions of laughter, see Sully’s An Essay on Laughter 
(Longmans, Green: 1907), and Bergson’s Laughter (Macmillan, 1914). 


MIRTHFUL NATURE eA 


lent, hysterical laughter, which is an abnormal and pathological phenome- 
non. A sunny disposition is an excellent sub-soil for the development 
of mirthful attitudes. A vivacious temperament is productive of far 
more mirthful behavior than a phlegmatic one. Mercurial persons laugh 
more than those given to deep reflection. A person of the latter type 
may experience mirth even when he shows no visible signs thereof. 
He reports subjective pleasure in many cases in which other persons break 
out into laughter. Hence, one wonders that Bergson should identify 
the cause of laughter with intelligence, pure and simple, and say 
that “laughter is incompatible with emotion.’’* It is true that intelligence 
is a necessary factor, and yet children often manifest uproarious and 
prolonged laughter over an occurrence which an intellectual adult will 
scarcely notice. Laughter does not go with sorrow and not as a rule with 
anger, but is accompanied by the emotion of joy. In a large majority of 
cases a pleasant feeling or emotional organic tone precedes and accom- 
panies mirthful responses. 

Laughter is born of social contacts. Whenever two or more persons 
who are somewhat like-minded are gathered together under agreeable 
circumstances, they are apt to burst out into laughter at any moment; 
while if a person who is alone is heard to laugh long and heartily he is 
at once interrogated, and if he does so frequently his sanity is suspected. 
Laughter roots in a social situation. 

A child may be stimulated to laugh upon hearing another child or adult 
laughing; his neuro-muscular mechanism is “set-off” by the sensory 
stimuli. In the same way sometimes hearing one’s self laugh stimulates 
the individual’s laughter mechanism into renewed and invigorated laughter, 
and the person asserts that he cannot stop laughing. This type of 
phenomenon is a result of the operation of sympathetic emotion or vibra- 
tion, with its consequent release of similarly organized neuro-muscular 
mechanisms. 


SPURIOUS MIRTHFUL ATTITUDES 


Intersocial stimulation causes persons sometimes to feign mirth. One 
may laugh in order to seem interested in the story or incident that is being 
related. Even though the matter may not seem to him humorous, he 
laughs out of respect for the host or speaker, and for conventional and 
courtesy reasons,—in order to be considered like other people, or in order 
not tc be conspicuous. The listener may fail to catch the point of a story 
or a situation, but joins heartily in group laughter. When other persons 

* Laughter, pp. 5, 139. 


78 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





are responding to a choice bit of comedy, it often seems wiser to partici- 
pate even though the point has not been grasped, than to appear stupid 
or stolid. 

Mirth is occasionally assumed in order to cover up an insult. A person 
does not want to acknowledge openly that he has been treated disrespect- 
fully, and so will parry the thrust by a laugh. One may be asked an 
embarrassing or impertinent question, but in order not to show his feel- 
ings in the presence of spectators, he will “laugh it off.” This occurrence 
represents a sublimation of a flood of angry or shameful feelings into an 
outward expression that is directly contrary in type to anger or shame, 
and thus conceals the true inward state. In these cases the sublimation 
of energy into a few short, explosive laughs perhaps gives the individual 
necessary relief and enables him to think more clearly. Another implica- 
tion is that the situation is not nearly as serious or grave as the questioner 
or antagonist believes or would have the spectators believe; consequently, 
the one who is questioned or challenged is relieved of embarrassment or 
confusion, and normal social relationships are re-established. 

A mirthful attitude is sometimes resorted to in order to cover pain. A 
person may camouflage pain with laughter, and conceal an offended pride 
with assumed gayety. Laughter may be utilized to sidetrack attention 
from one’s genuine tears of pain or anger. A four-year old boy picked 
himself up after a hard fall, rubbed his bleeding knee, and laughing said 
through his tears to the spectators: “Wasn’t that a joke on me?” 

Children and some adults will indulge in laughter in order to attract 
attention. The girl who laughs the loudest may be the one who is wearing 
the bright new ribbon or the latest fad in sweaters, or the boy who laughs 
above the boisterous behavior of the “gang” may be a deliberate candidate 
for hero worship. 

Then there is laughter that the paid entertainer assumes in order to get 
others to laugh. If he simulates laughter well enough, others by reflex 
action will translate his feigned mood into a genuine one. 


INCONGRUOUS ACTIONS 


The mirthful attitude is stimulated most frequently by incongruous 
actions. Incongruity consists in the unexpected, the somewhat unnatural, 
of making abrupt movements when smooth action is in order, and of 
making simple mistakes in behavior. A dignified man runs after his wind- 
blown hat, a boy with a basket of eggs falls down, a dog chases his tail— 
these are mirth-provoking incongruities. The Charlie Chaplin films succeed 


MIRTHFUL NATURE 70 


because of incongruous actions and situations. The humor in A House- 
Boat on the Styx springs from the bringing together of famous characters 
with their widely divergent ways and experiences, for the result is an 
incongruous juxtaposition of events and personalities. 

In this connection Bergson has pointed out that incongruity frequently 
consists in mechanical movements or gestures where the naturally human 
is expected. This emphasis on the mechanical in the human is well 
placed, although it does not cover all the antecedent factors in mirthfulness. 
The comic physiognomy is essentially a mechanical facial gesture. The 
awkward gesture of the hand of a public speaker upon repetition attracts 
attention to its mechanicalness and becomes ludicrous. The dignified 
person who falls, falls hard, that is, mechanically. The goat who rears 
and butts whenever his forehead is pressed acts mechanically, and hence 
comically. 


INCONGRUOUS IDEAS 


Mirthful attitudes are generated by incongruous ideas, as well as by 
incongruous actions. The extensive analysis by Boris Sidis has been modi- 
fied here; and new illustrations are as a rule given.® The incongruous 
idea appears in a variety of guises. 1. Illogical statements. Many of 
the Pat and Mike stories are of this character. The obvious is on the 
surface, but a slight examination reveals a contradiction, as for instance: 


Pat was breathlessly running along a country road in Ireland one day when 
he was accosted by Mike who asked him why he was hurrying so fast, and 
Pat replied: “I have a long way to go, and I want to get there before I’m all 
tired out.” 


2. Grammatical and rhetorical errors. The assertions of children 
afford many illustrations of this type of incongruity. The child in 
attempting to use phrases or words which he has heard or overheard in 
conversation is apt to use them in wrong connections, or to put them to- 
gether in ways which to his elders are out of harmony with usages, as in- 
dicated in these examples: 


Don’t unbusy me. 
The sun is rising down (setting). Hy 
You two people are sitting down and we two people are sitting up (standing). 


3. Idiomatical and related mistakes. Children, foreigners, and 
uneducated persons are often the victims of the mistaken use of words and 


* The Psychology of Laughter (Appleton, 1913). 


80 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





phrases. The foreigner in any land falls into wrong uses of the native 
tongue. Incongruity may arise from using the phrases and terms of 
a foreign language according to language patterns of one’s own tongue. 
Incongruities of this type are illustrated in the “Togo” stories by Wallace 
Irwin. 


I welcome lobster cordially, yet I never could make them set quietly on my 
digestion. 

While I was setting peeling potatoes of suddenly come Indiana (Indian) 
yell befront of my back while stool leg on which I was occupying flop uply 
so confused that I were deposed to floor with potatoes pouring over my brain. 


4. The play on words. When a Scotch regiment was marching to the 
front in France, a French soldier who was watching them said: “They 
can’t be men, for they wear skirts, and they can’t be women for they have 
mustaches.” “T have it,” said another poilu, “they’re that famous Middle- 
sex regiment from London.” The pun is a higher type of logical incon- 
gruity than any of the forms which have already been noted. It often 
relieves a strained social situation, as illustrated in the case of de Reszke, — 
a famous Polish artist, who was in Paris at the time his famous fellow 
countryman, Paderewski, gave a recital there. At a dinner party another 
guest put the somewhat tactless question, “Who is the most popular artist 
on the musical stage?” “Pas de Reszke,” flashed back the great tenor, 
thus punningly denying his own claim, and in its stead asserting that of 
Paderewski.® 

5. Overstatement or understatement that is moderate and implied. 
Lying is not humorous, for it deliberately harms and misrepresents and 
thus produces antagonistic rather than mirthful reactions. A House- 
Boat on the Styx affords many illustrations of overstatement. After 
deliberate calculation and patient waiting for thirteen days the hunter 
finds that the sixty-eight ducks which he has been observing have formed 
in a straight line. The powder is minutely estimated and a valuable 
pearl—since the marksman has no bullets—is used as the instrument of 
destruction. The sixty-eight ducks are killed. The pearl traveled 
through the body of sixty-seven and retained enough force to kill the 
sixty-eighth, in whose body it was found—and saved, as calculated. 

6. A sudden change from the serious to the trifling or ridiculous. © 
Kant’s theory of nullification of expectation fits in here. Dr. Sidis refers 
to “Pat” who upon being upbraided for not showing intelligence gave the 
following explanation: “I was a bright man at birth but when I was a 


* Living Age, 318: 92. 


a 


MIRTHFUL NATURE 81 


ew days old, my nurse exchanged me for another baby who was a 
fool.” 

7. Unintended suggestion. This type generally results from careless 
use of language, and occasionally in spite of careful use of terms which 
may have more than one meaning. A church in a western town must hold 
long services for it recently announced: “The regular services will com- 
mence next Sunday evening at 7 o’clock and continue until further 
notice.” 

One day two opposing lawyers in court became angry at one another 
and one of them pointing to the other said: “That attorney is the 
ugliest and meanest man in town.” “You forget yourself, you forget 
yourself, Mr. Smith,” said the court, rapping for order with his gavel. 


RIDICULE AND REPARTEE 


There is laughter which is simply ridiculous; a person is derided for 
incongruous or alleged incongruous conduct, for conduct that is out of 
harmony with group or personal standards. Humorous exaggeration, 
which may be decidedly caustic, is sometimes employed. Then there is 
the ironical laugh which is induced by covert satire. There is laughter, 
also, which is purely and openly sarcastic, biting, and generally anti-social. 
It deliberately misrepresents; even the congruous is made to seem 
incongruous. Social ridicule of this sort, one of the most vicious forms 
of social control, is highly dangerous. 

Repartee is that process by which a person who makes another to 
appear ludicrous is himself put into an incongruous position. It includes 
both an intellectual element and promptness. A lawyer said of the dimin- 
utive counsel who opposed him: “He is so small that I could put him 
in my pocket.” But the opposing counsel promptly shouted back, “If you 
did, you’d have more brains in your pocket than in your head,” and 
reversed the tide of invidious laughter. 


HUMOR AND WIT 


Humorous laughter directs attention to an individual’s weaknesses and 
incongruities, but always contains at least mild sympathetic elements. It 
is good natured, and may be entirely restrained if it is likely to do harm. 
Sometimes however it holds within the depths of its emotional manifesta- 
tions elements which are corrective and which constitute reproof. 

Wit leads to laughter by intellectual interpretations of subtle incon- 


82 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





gruities. It includes the pun, repartee, and involves considerable thought 
power; its particular trait is quickness; if delayed, time eliminates the 
sharpness of the incongruity. 


» GROUP MIRTH 


The group laughs at almost any mistake or incongruity in conduct or 
speech of the individual. If the error is easily discernible, the laughter 
of the group may be spontaneous, and the individual victim or victims 
greatly embarrassed. Spontaneous group laughter is often very hard 
to bear by the individual, for it is experienced so unexpectedly that 
he is apt to lose his normal self control. The implication is that the 
mistake is so evidently simple that the given individual should not have 
made it; it is a reflection upon his mental ability. 

If the error is deep-seated it may not be detected by the members of the 
group at once, and the laughter of the group may be delayed. The indi- 
vidual thus is given time to recognize his own mistake and to prepare 
himself for withstanding the laughter of the group. The fact that the © 
group does not recognize the error at once implies that its subtlety par- 
tially excuses the making of it. 

Sometimes the group is prejudiced against an individual, and it may be 
even organized to embarrass him or the cause which he represents ; and he 
becomes the victim of concerted, even of malicious, laughter. A person 
is apt to feel a gross sense of injustice because of the disadvantages at 
which group ridicule puts him; he experiences a deep sense of social 
isolation; and may develop a fighting attitude. 


PERSONAL REACTIONS 


Mirthful nature may be analyzed from still another angle. I may 
laugh at others; I may let others laugh at me; and I may publicly laugh 
at myself. It is easy upon seeing the incongruities of other persons to 
burst into exclamation and laughter. Unrestrained laughter at others 
is rudeness; it indicates that the individual who so conducts himself is 
unsympathetic. 

To let others laugh at my incongruities and blunders requires self-con- 
trol on my part, and a habitual adjustment to this sort of experience. If 
I can cover my chagrin and embarrassment, the group’s laughter is kept 
from being prolonged. By seeming to enjoy the group’s laughter at me, 
I seem to bifurcate myself—I seem to identify myself with the group 
and hence the group easily develops a fellow feeling for me. 


MIRTHFUL NATURE 83 


If I can publicly let others laugh at my blunders and defeats, then I 
have reached a superior stage of self discipline. I may deliberately allow 
or even invite the group to discipline me, and thus give the impression 
of complete group alignment. The members of the group recognize my 
weaknesses as being related to their own foibles, and in consequence I am 
easily accepted into the social consciousness of my fellows. After his 
first defeat for the presidency Mr. Bryan achieved a national reputation 
as an adept in winning sympathy by telling good stories “on” himself. 
This is one of the cleverest ways of disarming one’s opponents. 


SOCIAL EFFECTS 


Social laughter is a corrective. It arouses fear, “restrains eccentricity,” 
and prevents individuals from innocently straying far from group con- 
ventions and standards. It is a patent means of group tyranny and pro- 
duces conformity in cases in which conformity is of no use to the group 
but is costly to the individual, e.g., “ridicule of the shiny elbows of the 
janitor.” 

Social laughter prevents groups from becoming mechanically inelastic. 
It helps the members keep “in touch.’”’ When individuals laugh together 
they are apt to feel more kindly toward one another. Laughter socializes 
those who laugh together, but not as a rule the laugher and laughee. For 
example: (1) A laughs at C, which usually will irritate C; (2) A and 
B laugh at C, with the result that A and B feel more alike, while C may. 
feel ostracized; (3) C gives A and B a chance to laugh at him, for 
example, “tells one’ on himself, which causes A and B to feel kindlier 
toward him and to unify all three. Mirthfulness heightens the group 
tone; many a tense social situation is relieved by a humorous sally. 

On the other hand, one who would voice a strange idea, no matter how 
worthy it may be, must brave social laughter or ridicule, and by standing 
out successfully against the group, becomes individualized. In an impor- 
tant sense, mirthfulness is antagonistic to sympathy. If one puts him- 
self completely in the place of another, he will rarely laugh at the other. 
Thus, mirthfulness may be unsympathetic, impersonal, objective, and 
individualizing. 

Mirthfulness has survival and success values. Mirthfulness builds up 
both the physical and mental nature of a person. It shakes him up, 
stimulates, relaxes, and re-creates him. It sets his organism in better 
tune and enables him to laugh at his duller moments and blunders, thus 
restoring him to a normal personal equilibrium. Mirthfulness is an open 


84 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


sesame to the good will of other persons; it prevents an individual from 
taking himself too seriously and restores him to the fellowship of social 
group life. No national characters in the United States in recent decades 
have so well illustrated this principle as William Howard Taft in his public 
attitude toward his inglorious defeat for re-election in 1912, e.g., his call- 
ing himself “the worst-licked man who ever ran for President;’ and 
William Jennings Bryan in his references to similar defeats, e.g., his 
referring back to 1896 when he “first began running for the Presidency.” 
By a mirthful attitude one can come back anew, or maintain mental youth- 
fulness, and multiply his social efficiency. Through mirthfulness one can 
gain or re-gain a normal, well-balanced development of all the natural 
powers of his personality. A mirthful attitude sanely used may be rated 
as one of the most useful assets for all participants in intersocial stimula- 
tion. 


PRINCIPLES 


1. A mirthful attitude involves the recognition of mildly incongruous | 
situations, the incongrous actions of one’s fellows, and incongruous 
ideas. 

2. Mirthful nature arises out of elemental factors, such as a favorable 
tone of health, surplus energy, play and gregarious tendencies. 

3. Important variations of mirth are humor, wit, repartee, and ridicule; 

each has its specific social meanings. 

. Group laughter is a powerful form of social control. 

. Laughter is both a social corrective and a socializing agent. 


wn 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


1. What is a mirthful attitude? : 
2. State the laughter theories of (a) Aristotle, (b) Hobbes, (c) Kant, 
(d) Schopenhauer, (e) Spencer, (f) Bergson. | 


3. Explain: “Laughter is born of social contacts.” 
4. What is meant by a spurious mirthful attitude? 
5 
6 


. Why do incongruous actions create mirth? 
. Why do incongruous ideas represent a superior but a less common 
cause of laughter than incongruous actions? 
7- Distinguish between ridicule and repartee. 
8. Which is easiest to bear, spontaneous or delayed group laughter? 
g. Explain: “Social laughter is a corrective.” 
Oo. Explain: “Laughter socializes.” 


a ee i 


ne 


MIRTHFUL NATURE 85 


PROBLEMS 


. Why is mirth a subject important enough for serious discussion? 
. ‘Why is it worth while to develop the habit of seeing the humorous 


phases of life? 


. What is Shakespeare’s meaning when he speaks of being “stabbed with 


laughter ?”’ 


. To what does Milton refer when he writes of “laughter holding both 


his sides?” 


. Why do we laugh at the incongruous or degrading experiences of 


others instead of feeling grieved? 
Why is a city dude in the country a mirth producing object? 


. Why is a “hayseed” in the city an even greater comic object? 
. Illustrate: Laughter kills innovations. 


Why is man more afraid of social ridicule than of severe physical 
punishment ? 


. Explain: “The true hero is one who can ignore social laughter.” 
. Why do people never laugh at stories which involve stuttering or 


which describe the antics of an intoxicated person? 


. Why are the actions of an intoxicated man more productive of 


laughter than the actions of an intoxicated woman? 


. Why does a wry face that simulates pain produce laughter? 
. Why does the entrance of a dog into a lecture room filled with college 


students create a mirthful outbreak ? 


. To what type of individuals is the comic sheet most laughable? 
. What is the difference between the laughable and the silly? 
. Why is it laughable to see the waves dash unexpectedly over a person 


who is walking along the beach? 


. Why did audiences laugh heartily even at the most genuinely serious 


remark of Mark Twain? 


. Why is a trivial interruption that occurs during a prayer service often 


laughable? 


. Why are deaf people and not blind people used in comedies? 


What is the leading social value in laughter? 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Bergson, Henri, Laughter (Macmillan, IQI4). 
Bliss, S. H., “The Origin of Laughter,” Amer. Jour. of Psychology, 


26: 236-46. 


86 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


Hall and Allin, “The Psychology of Tickling, Laughing, and the Comic,” 
Amer. Jour. of Psychology, 1X: 1-41. 

Meredith, George, Essay on Comedy and the Comic Spirit (Scribners, 
1909). 

Patrick, G. T. S., The FSychology of Relaxation (Houghton Mifflin, 
1916), Ghi ITT, 

Sidis, Boris, The Psychology of Laughter (Macmillan, 1913). 

Sully, James, dn Essay on Laughter (Longmans, Green: 1907). 


PART TWO 
INTERSTIMULATION 


me 





CHAPTER VIII 
ISOLATION 


AVING analyzed basic human nature, the discussion will now take 

up the fundamental phases of intersocial stimulation. This phe- 
nomenon, representing the humming centers of human activity, may be 
best approached from the lonely peaks of isolation.1 We consider only 
relative isolation, for absolute isolation is humanly unthinkable. We know 
of no human beings who have developed wholly outside intersocial 
stimulation. 


ISOLATION VERSUS COMMUNICATION 


- Isolation exists in inverse proportion to the degree of communication. 
If there are no communicative symbols with their correlative meanings, 
if the communication symbols exist, but their operation has been blocked, 
there is isolation. Note the cry for communication in these “personals” 
from the London Times :? 


D. W. T.—Toronto. No letter—please write-——Dad. 

Cynthe, dearest, your absence is distressing us; write to us immediately 
that we may know you are well.—Mother. 

Joe—Communicate with me.—Fred. 

Toddy.—If you are anywhere in this wide, wide world write immediately 
to same address you left.—Jamie. 


Even persons who have achieved fame and leadership report the rdle 
of isolation in their lives. Note the following confession concerning 
isolation and its influence: 


The dominantly sad note of my life may be designated by the one word, 
isolation. A country farm far from the village, ambition shared by no boys 
of my age; misunderstood by my father; the fitting school with classmates 
too advanced and mature for companionship; college, with only a few choice 
intimates and congenials; the seminary, where I was suspected of heresy, 
which thus hindered associations or even broke those I had come to prize, as 
had also happened in my later college course; the years in Europe, where my 


* Although there is an endless number of references to isolation throughout litera- 
ture and social science documents, the theme has had no extended analysis excepting 
the excellent treatment by Park and Burgess, Introduction to the Science of 
Sociology (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1921), Ch. IV. 

*Slosson and Downey, Plots and Personalities (Century, 1923), p. 27. 

89 


go FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


only friends were foreigners speaking an alien tongue and with no one to 
advise or counsel; my interest in studies slowly shaping along lines which 
very few in this country cared for; nearly a score of years after college 
graduation before permanent and final settlement in the kind of academic 
chair I wanted; the tragic death of my first wife and six-year-old daughter 
just after reaching Worcester; the ten years of living alone that followed; 
the débacle of my great hopes and plans for Clark University during its 
third year, the long period of misunderstandings that followed; the uniqueness 
of our plan which set us more or less apart; some odium sexicum, which began 
with the publication of my Adolescence and was intensified by my introduction 
of Freudianism into this country and by my teaching some of its essentials, 
although with great reservations (a topic still practically taboo by the American 
Psychological Association, which was organized in my house and of which 
I was the first president) ; some acute experiences with the odium theologicum 
which followed the publication of my Jesus, the Christ, in the Light of Psy- 
chology; my genetic conception of the human soul as a product of evolution 
like the body; the crust of diffidence that always had to be broken through at 
every public appearance.’ 


PHASES AND CAUSES OF ISOLATION 


1. Animal groups are isolated from one another. The food call of © 
the mother hen bring no hungry kittens running to her; the cry of pain 
by a puppy produces no signs of sympathetic response on the part of the 
mother cat. 

2. All animals, except the most developed, are isolated from human 
beings. Barring a few exceptions, as in the case of an occasional 
domesticated dog, the frightened call of the child arouses no response in 
animal creation. Of perhaps 150,000 species probably not more than 
fifty have been domesticated, that is, partly extricated from their isolation 
from mankind. Through force and kindness, individual members of 
these fifty species learn to respond favorably to human stimuli. Out 
of animal-human contacts a few crude symbols have acquired meaning 
for specific animals. But unless this process is begun very early in the 
life of an animal, such as the horse and other domesticated animals, 
it is not likely to succeed. The process of taming, in one sense, is that 
of bringing an animal out of this fundamental isolation, through patient 
teaching which often may include the use of force. The application of 
force creates fear-responses; rarely and only indirectly, attachment- 
responses. 

3. Human beings who have been reared to a large extent apart from 
society furnish an excellent laboratory for the study of isolation phe- 
nomena. Casper Hauser is perhaps the best known of such individuals. 


*G. Stanley Hall, Life and Confessions of a Psychologist (Appleton, 1923), p. 594. 


ISOLATION gI 


While the data concerning him are not entirely satisfactory, being partly 
concealed in contradictory reports, it seems that he was about sixteen 
years of age when he appeared at Nuremburg (Germany).* At birth 
he had been left on the doorstep of a Hungarian peasant’s hut, and had 
been reared in strict seclusion from all human beings. He had been kept 
in a low dark cell on the ground, and had never seen the face of the 
man who brought him food. At the age of sixteen when he escaped from 
this solitary existence, he knew no German and understood but little 
that was said to him. He called both men and women Bua and all animals 
Rosg. He paid little heed to what went on about him and recognized no 
social customs. It is reported that he burned his hand in the first fire 
which he saw, that he had no fear of being struck with a sword, but 
that the sound of a drum threw him into convulsive fear. He reacted to 
pictures and statuary as though they were alive, and was delighted by 
whistles and bright objects. Experts pronounced him idle, vain, but 
stupid, and autopsic examination revealed a small undeveloped, but other- 
wise normal brain. 

We may now turn to cases of children who have been reared in the 
wilds. Myth and fact easily mingle in such accounts, but the “Irish 
boy” and the “girl of Songi,’ described by Rauber, may be accepted as 
true and illustrative.° 

The Irish boy, who after living with animals until sixteen years old, was 
examined by a gymnasium director of Amsterdam. His body was covered 
with hair, and his skin was so thick and insensible, that sharp objects such 
as thorns were not felt. He had lived with sheep and bleated like them. 
He was stolid, not self-conscious, and took.no notice of people. Unlike 
the sheep with which he had lived, he was fierce and untamable. 

The girl of Songi was found at about the age of nine. She came out 
of the forest of Chalons, carrying a club with which she killed a dog 
that attacked her. She climbed trees and ran across walls and roofs like 
a squirrel. She ate raw fish, loved to adorn herself with leaves and 
flowers, and adapted herself, only with great difficulty, to some of the 
simpler customs of human society. Her speech was limited to cries, 
although she later learned something of the French language. She never 
gave up the use of certain sounds, which had no meaning to others. 


*H. Small, “On Some Psychical Relations of Society and Solitude,” Pedagogical 
Seminary, VII, 2, pp. 32-35. 

*The best collection of instances of this type has been made by August Rauber, 
Homo Sapiens Ferus (Leipzig, 1885); in the English language, the best materials 
on this subject are those collected by Park and Burgess, Introduction to the Science 
of Sociology, pp. 239 ff. 


92 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





4. The prisoner locked in his cell or governed by the rule of silence 
tends to become both unsocial and anti-social. He is subject, first to 
mental distortion, and then to a disintegration of mind and of the 
whole personality.2 Often he becomes viciously antagonistic. Being 
literally thrown out of society, he angrily resents his situation and de- 
velops anti-social attitudes. An isolated prisoner thus is usually self- 
conscious, suspicious, emotional, and apt to become neurotic. Under 
solitary confinement, the individual’s personality is likely to go to pieces 
and violent insanity result. It is such a psychical appreciation of a 
prisoner’s state of isolation which led Thomas Mott Osborne’ to sub- 
stitute sociability for isolation, and which has produced marvelously fine 
results in reclaiming convicts to a normal life. Now and then an indi- 
vidual does not respond, usually because the anti-social effects of isolation 
have become fixed habits. Even when a prisoner is released, the 
convict stigma isolates him from normal society. Says Darrow, an ex- 
perienced lawyer in criminal cases: 


The criminal has always been met by coldness and hatred that have made © 
him lose his finer feelings, have blunted his sensibilities, and have taught 
him to regard all others as his enemies and not his friends.® 


5. A person who has lived his whole life on the Fiji Islands, in Tim- 
buctu, or in a mountain fastness of the Andes, is isolated from modern 
civilization, except as civilization may be brought to him by a missionary 
or a trader. Isolation in this spatial or geographic sense has been com- 
mon; during all the eons of human life on the earth excepting the last 
century physical distance has been a complete barrier. 

When direct human communication was limited to a range of less than 
a mile, physical isolation ruled, but now that instantaneous communica- 
tion may take place over thousands of miles, space has been almost con- 
quered. When illiteracy prevailed and travel was scarcely heard of, spa- 
tial isolation was everything; but now that education, the press, and 
travel are common, the social handicaps of space are almost negligible. 
Now when one’s friend departs on a long journey, even around the world, 
it is possible to call after him, and if need be, to bring him speeding back 
homeward. Where civilization has reached, the telegraph, telephone, 
radio, printing press, and the railroad have overcome spatial isolation. 

6. Pioneering is a special form of spatial isolation. The pioneer is one 


*Frank Tannenbaum, Wall Shadows (Putnam, 1921), p. 15. 
" Society and Prisons (Yale Univ. Press, 1916). 
*Crime (Crowell, 1922), p. 155. 


ISOLATION 93 


who is separated by distance from his home group. Geographically and 
psychically he is partly detached from civilization. The pioneer is one 
who in adventure is ahead of the multitude, but who in spatial isolation is 
temporarily behind. He is doubly isolated—from his parent-group, and 
from the strangers he comes in contact with. Frontier people are gen- 
erally noted for their hospitality. Anyone who has travelled in the moun- 
tains or in any frontier region has been struck with the welcome he has 
received, and the genuine pleasure shown in his society. Isolation has left 
the pioneer hungry for social contacts, hence the extra friendliness he 
displays. 

7. The individual born deaf and dumb, or who is bedridden with an 
infectious and chronic disease, or who has lost both his arms and legs 
in an accident illustrates what may be called physiological isolation. 

The individual who, born deaf, does not learn to speak is apt to be 
considered dumb. A large percentage of such cases have been found 
not to be “dumb” at all, but simply isolated by deafness. Their vocal 
apparatus is normal except that it has not been stimulated. Individuals 
of this type, however, need not be fundamentally isolated under modern 
conditions, for the current means of communication, such as newspapers, 
radio-telephony, the scientific journals, the Braille system, and the stimula- 
tion of many friendships, may be theirs. Helen Keller is the most 
remarkable case on record of the rescue of an individual from an appar- 
ently hopeless state of physiological isolation. 

8. Feeble-mindedness and similar low mental levels isolate. The idiot 
or congenitally defective and the insane are all precluded from normal 
mental stimulation. 

9. Groups isolate. Every human group is isolated to a degree from 
every other group—family from family, city from city, nation from 
nation, race from race. Whatever integrates isolates. Group organiza- 
tion creates a fellow feeling within the ranks, but isolates those within 
from those without. Furthermore groups develop heritages which isolate. 
Group heritage, inculcated by deed and word, look and oath into the lives 
of individuals when children, creates different standards of belief and 
action that are as walls between individuals. 

No one joins a secret society without feeling himself a little cut-off 
from non-fraternity friends, and they feel the same about him. Secrecy 
stirs the imagination of outsiders until social barriers become magnified 
a thousand-fold. Hence, secret societies clash with democracy. In fact, 
it may be seriously questioned whether secret societies have a place in a 


94 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





true democracy. Groups isolate. The strike “cuts off the employer-work- 
man relation, while the boycott suspends the contact of buyer and seller.” ® 

10. Nationalism isolates. Nationalists often work up a super-loyalty 
which blinds them to the virtues of other groups and the vices of their 
own. The gravest charge against an otherwise praiseworthy loyalty, 
namely, patriotism, is that it helps create a dangerous isolation between the 
best people of different nations. They are led into believing false and 
injurious charges against other peoples; other nationals are likewise 
misled until a mutual isolation results, with misunderstanding, prejudice, 
hatred, and war following in its train. Such prejudices may become tra- 
ditional, as in the case of the French and German national heritages with 
their mutually disjunctive attitudes and loyalties. A world organization 
supported by a world community spirit would do away with much of the 
existing international isolation. 

One of the best instances of national isolation is the effect upon mis- 
sionaries’ families of living in a foreign country. A loyal American 
missionary in India, upon returning recently to the United States on a 
furlough says: 

The American ways were new and un-natural. Our children cried to go 
back to India. They were lonely because they had nothing in common with 
those about them. They felt that they were unwanted here. All the things 


they had learned to love through long acquaintance and association were many 
miles away. 


11. Race loyalty likewise isolates. The greater the visible differences 
between races, the greater the barriers. For self protection each race 
builds about itself a tradition of greatness. By dwelling at length on the 
brave deeds of its own heroes and by magnifying the faults of other 
races, each race develops an isolating self-conceit. Together race pride 
and race prejudice put up almost insuperable human barriers.!° 

12. Religions isolate. The Mohammedan and Christian are widely 
divergent; the historical cleavages between Catholic and Protestant are 
many; while fundamentalist and liberalist among Protestants are sepa- 
rated. People of different faiths have such different beliefs and customs 
that they do not feel at home in each other’s company. Note the follow- 
ing experience of a Protestant attending a Catholic service for the first 
time. 

The service began and the congregation rose and knelt at intervals appar- 
ently in unison. I remained quietly seated and did not feel uncomfortably 


nC. M. Case, Non-Violent Coercion (Century, 1923), p. 401. 
Cf. George Elliott Howard, Social Psychology (Syllabus, University of Ne- 
braska, 1910), Ch. XIX, 


ISOLATION 95 


conspicuous until I carelessly leaned against the fingers of the lady behind me. 
It was then that I decided to do as the others. I kept my head bowed and 
watched the movement of the congregation as well as I could, but stood or 
knelt just one lap behind the others. Once when they rose from a kneeling 
to a sitting position I stood bolt upright in my haste to do as the others. 
During the remainder of the service I sat miserably conscious that those 
around me knew that a stranger was present. 


Within a given religious group, a change of religious views will create 
isolation and separation. A young minister gives this experience: 


T once subscribed to a certain theological dogma and took certain vows with 
all earnestness but with little thought of my future mental development. I 
then took a course of study which broadened my views considerably. I could 
not consider myself an honest man if I proclaimed doctrines I no longer 
believed, so I closed my eyes to consequences and proclaimed from the pulpit 
my new views. The results were immediate; at first, I was “waited on by 
the brethren’; then I was the topic of conversation where elderly ladies sipped 
tea. I was anathematized by the more “devout” of the congregation until I 
resigned my pulpit for the good and harmony of the church, and moved to 
another city, but continued membership in the denomination. My reputation 
followed me. People whom I had counted on as friends “‘passed by on the 
other side.” I was looked upon as a criminal. I felt as if I looked like one. 
I felt guilty, although I knew I was guilty only of thinking. I was a stranger 
among old friends, and lonesomeness settled over me. I was not only isolated 
by their actions but gradually came to the point where I shunned them. 
Finally, a complete break was made and I made a new ecclesiastical connection. 


13. Occupations isolate. The minister or priest is isolated from other 
persons, for he thinks in theological terms. He cannot do exactly as his 
parishioners do, for they will lose respect for him as their religious leader. 
The motorman works in the isolation of “Don’t speak to the motorman.” 
The trapper works ‘“‘vowed to perpetual silence.” Each occupation and 
profession builds for its members a wall out of its special ethics, view- 
points, terminology. Occupations result in occupational biases, minds, 
and hence occupational divisions. 

Cornelia Stratton Parker’s experiences in “working with the working 
women” illustrates many phases of occupational isolation. In going to 
work in a factory, she began preparations by purchasing “large green 
earrings, a bar pin of platinum and brilliants, a goldy box of powder (two 
shades), a lip stick.” She faded a green tam-o’shanter so that it would 
not look so new, dug an old blue serge dress from the rag bag, wore spats 
that “just missed being mates as to shade, and a button off one.” Then, 
she chewed gum hard and kept at it, but found that while earrings and 
gum help, the occupational distinction in the use of English gave her 


96 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





away. She could not rid herself of her English and say regarding a 
friend, “She aint livin’ at that address no more.’ 

Within occupations there are sub-occupational groups, and isolation 
exists between these. A young lady about to take a new position as a 
stenographer discloses this phase of occupational isolation: 


I approached the huge office building with awe and a feeling of fear. There 
were many women and an equal number of men at work in the long room 
into which the manager directed me. It seemed that all eyes were upon me 
as I entered that room. I did not know where to lay my wraps, or where 
to go next. After I had been introduced to my new “boss,” I had some 
difficulty in getting the right kind of typewriter. After I did get started to 
work, I could feel the curious glances of the office force upon me. I never 
came to feel entirely at home in this group, because of their ways to which 
I could not get adjusted. 


14. Ownership of property isolates. Great wealth throws around a 
person a retinue of servants, iron fences, and conventional rules which cut 
him off from the middle classes and the masses. One thus fails to appre- 


ciate the problems of the majority of mankind; this lack of appreciation is . 


isolation. 
The absence of property is also isolating. A confirmed pauper living in 
a country poorhouse or even a laborer with a large family living in a 


“shack” are cut off from many normal social contacts. While such. 


persons have access to newspapers, a few friends, some public meetings, 
they do not meet many cultured people, they cannot travel much, and 
they are denied all higher educational advantages and contacts. 

15. Differences in temperament isolate. “She is not my type,” illus- 
trates the point. “I simply cannot stand his careless ways” is another 
instance. Extreme temperamental differences are supported by habits 
which hinder social contacts. A reactionary Republican “boss” and an 
extreme Socialist have developed such different mental habits that they 
commonly misunderstand one another completely ; and misunderstanding 
is always isolation. A militant Mohammedan and a peace-at-any-price 
Christian or an old-time capitalist and a radical labor union organizer, are 
in the same category. 

16. [Illiteracy isolates. Lack of education is a bar to breadth of view- 
point, to contact with the classics, to accurate thinking. The untrained 
person can not appreciate the attitudes of the trained mind. Persons who 
have not had the advantages of education, culture, and travel are set off 
from those who have had and made use of these opportunities, thus 
creating viewpoints that are more or less characteristic. 

“Working with the Working Woman (Harper, 1922), Ch. I. 


ISOLATION 97 


17. Arbitrary social barriers, based on birth, position, wealth prevent 
democratic social contacts. The dividing lines must not be overstepped ; 
isolation is officially cultivated. ‘“Unclean, unclean,” is cried in scornful 
glance if not in word; and sometimes taboo is transmitted by facial ex- 
pression. A young man living in one part of town had been invited by an 
old-time friend to a party in another part of the same city, and reports: 


I found that I knew all the boys and most of the girls, but I did not have 
anything in common, in a social sense, with any of them. They had been 
going to parties together, could talk dances, and scandals of the younger set. 
My old-time friend had outgrown her former ways and I could not talk much 
with her. I moved around a little trying to think of something to do or say. 
I felt as though I spoke a foreign tongue which none could understand; I was 
out of place and would have given the world to have been able to leave. 

The boys who knew me occasionally looked at me and remarked something 
to their partners. I felt sometimes as though I were a shadow, so little did 
I have in common with the others. Again, I felt myself a strange animal, and 
at times it seemed as though my face would break under the strain of looking 
pleasant. 


18. Leadership isolates. Any leader, by virtue of being such, suffers 
loss of contacts. Christ’s greatest agony is found in part in the fact that 
“no one really understood the vastness of his thoughts and feelings, 
WE dei a's his spiritual loneliness was his extreme trial.”?? An eminent 
judge recently reported that when he accepted a position on the bench he 
found it necessary to give up his intimate friendship with many attorneys 
in order not to be accused of partiality when these attorneys were 
representing clients in his court. This isolated situation became unbear- 
able, and he finally compromised by keeping three or four close friends 
among attorneys and by refusing to permit them to try cases before him. 

In another way leadership isolates, for a leader who is devoted to the 
tasks of his position must give undivided attention for days or even 
weeks at a time to the technical problems before him in order that he may 
discharge his duties well. The congressman at the Capitol partly loses 
contact with his constituents, while back home his political rival may be 
making many new contacts. He therefore must hurry “home” before an 
election in order to “rebuild his fences,’ in other words, to re-establish 
contacts. An election often resolves itself into a conflict of “contacts” on 
the part of the respective candidates; the successful one is usually he 
who has made the most favorable contacts. 

Leadership also isolates in that it tends to give the successful leader 
a sense of exaltation, and a certain aloofness. Aristocratic attitudes, not 


4 Robertson quoted by Taylor, Social Life and the Crowd, p. 135. 


98 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





to mention autocratic attitudes, beget isolation. The importance of a 
leader maintaining level contacts with the multitude, is at once apparent. 
High peaks of eminence, moreover, are often unduly singled out for attack, 
and thus are isolated. 

19. Advancing years produce isolation. G. Stanley Hall reports: 

As I advance in years there are few things I crave more and feel more 
keenly the lack of than companionship. The almost inevitable isolation of old 


age is hard to bear, and I think I now have no greater enjoyment than in 
occasional visitations by friends.” | 


20. Social changes isolate. Parents often become isolated from their 
children, because a gulf forms between the child’s life and the customs of 
the older generation. The dramatist and novelist have made classic this 
type of isolation in many works, but particularly in Sowerby’s Rutherford 
and Son, and in Turgenieff’s Fathers and Sons. Herein are accounts of 
the tragic struggles between the conservatism of parents and the radicalism 
of children. Americanization often isolates parents from their children: 


“My children have grown up. They are educated, and the education given | 


them by America has taken them from me. I speak English only as an 
untaught alien can speak it. But my children know all the slang phrases and 
they can even speak English with Negro, Irish, and Dutch dialects. They 
speak differently, they act differently, and when they come to visit me they 


come alone. They do not explain why they do not bring their friends, but I — 


instinctively sense the reason. They should not fear. I would not cause them 
any embarrassment. But they too look upon their old father as an inferior, 
an alien, a roundhead—a bohunk.™ 


The difference in viewpoint between the reactionary and the radical in 
politics, religion, or industry is almost impossible to overcome—even by 
discussion and reasoning. Everywhere habits are being built on the basis 
of “present” conditions, but these quickly become “past’”’ conditions ; habits 
hold the individual stationary while conditions change. Thus, he who 
was once liberal becomes conservative, and then reactionary. This form 
of isolation can only be overcome by the particular habit of making 
over habits. 

A college alumnus returns to his alma mater and finds the same scenes, 
the familiar walks, the collegiate atmosphere, but suffers a distinct shock 
to discover “new faces set in old frames”; all the former students and 
nearly all the “beloved” instructors are gone; he feels lonely and isolated. 
A high school graduate leaves home and goes to college in a distant city. 
He testifies: 


* Life and Confessions of a Psychologist (Appleton, 1923), p. 589. 
“The Interpreter, II: 8. 


ao 


ISOLATION 99 


The students were so reserved; they had such a cold exterior. So for many, 
many weeks, I wandered around that dreary city of gray, clouded skies, hoping 
that some terrible event might befall me or someone I knew at home, so that 
I might be called back to my friends. 


The immigrant’s first days in a strange land are often filled with the 
pangs of isolation. Two experiences only will be cited; the first is by an 
Italian immigrant who has become a distinguished American scholar, and 
the second is by a Swedish immigrant. 


I. The next morning bright and early, leaving all my belongings with the 
barber, I started out in search of a job. I roamed about the streets, not 
knowing where or to whom to turn. That day and the next four days I had 
one loaf of bread each day for food, and at night, not having money with 
which to purchase shelter, I stayed on the recreation pier on Commercial 
Street (Boston). One night, very weary and lonely, I lay upon a bench and 
soon dozed off into a light sleep. The next thing I knew I cried out in bitter 
pain and fright. A policeman had stolen up to me very quietly and with his club 
had dealt me a heavy blow upon the soles of my feet. He drove me away, 
and I think I cried; I cried my first American cry. What became of me that 
night I cannot say. And the next day and the next—lI just roamed aim- 
lessly about the streets. Those first five days in America have left an 
impression upon my mind which can never be erased with the years.” 

2. I come from Sweden when I was eighteen years old. ... We wrote 
me ant a mont’ ago, I was comin, but when I got to Chicago, she wasn’t at de 
train. Whew! maybe I wasn’t scared! I walked round and round, den I sit 
down an’ cried like a big boob. I t’ought I die. Den along come a woman an’ 
put her hand on me shoulder, and ast me in Swedish what de matter was... . 
I told her about me ant, an’ she say I go wid her. She take me dere. I had 
de address all right, but me ant was gon’-—moved. Den I cry more, an’ a 
whole lots of people come out. Dey say me ant gone way out nort’, too far to 
go that night. One woman say I stay wid her if I sleep on floor. She say she 
fix bed for me. Dey was so kind, but I cry all night. I t’ink of ole country 
so far away.” 


Imposed and prolonged isolation from other persons causes individuals 
to go frantic. The importance of social contacts is seen in Taylor’s sum- 
mary of the effects of isolation. 


The solitude of nature’s fastnesses at the Poles, the solitude of the mountain 
tops, or of being alone in a little boat on the ocean, or walking over a vast 
prairie or moor at nightfall, these are always terrifying experiences to men, 
even the bravest of them, and to women more so and children most of all. 
Shepherds go mad shut in on solitary heights. And yet there is no solitude 
worse than the indifference of a great city thronged with people.” 


Let it be noted that sometimes temporary and self-imposed isolation is 
beneficial, for solitude is essential to reflection. A person needs to alter- 
*C_M. Panufizio, The Soul of an Immigrant (Macmillan, 1921), p. 74. 


* Cited by Annie M. MacLean, Our Neighbors (Macmillan, 1923), pp. 18-19. 
" Social Life and the Crowd (Small, Maynard: n. d.), p. 135. 


100 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





nate between solitude and social stimulation. After a time he tires of 
anything, no matter how good. To be with others continuously, even 
loved ones, produces fatigue and a lack of appreciation. He who spends 
all his time in a round of social engagements ultimately grows stupid in 
fundamental ideas. At any event, intersocial stimulation requires that a 
person seek intervals of isolation for purposes of reflection. 


CON CLUSION 


In conclusion it may be indicated that isolation is cumulative. The 
members of any competitive group, race, nation, clique, or “ring,” are 
not only isolated, but deliberately foster a social system which promotes 
and magnifies isolation. We who would love our neighbors as ourselves 
maintain “systems of social control that actually prevent us from doing it,” 
declares a distinguished leader of religious and social thought.1® These 
systems whether national, religious, or industrial often directly generate 
prejudice, put appeals to the feelings at a premium, and spread exaggerated 
teachings concerning the merits of the respective groups—thus promoting | 
isolation. 

Isolation, however, disappears as means of communication develop and 
begin to function. In a physical sense, the recent expansion of radio 
telephony has annihilated much isolation; the radio keeps the aged, the 
sick, and disabled in touch with life, as well as broadcasts weather reports, 
news events, musical concerts in ways that supplement the use of the news- 
paper, the automobile, the train, and other fast, but relatively speaking, 
slower means of communication. In a social sense education defies isola- 
tion. Broad visions lead to contacts. In 1918 and t1gi1g President 
Wilson made commendable pleas for open national contacts that would do 
away with secret agreements secretly arrived at and with other forms of 
international isolation. 


PRINCIPLES 


1. Isolation is absence of stimulation and communication. 

2. Basic forms of social isolation are found between animal groups, be- 
tween human and animal groups, and between different human 
groups, such as races, nations, castes, religious bodies, and cliques. 

3. Isolation is produced by differences in temperament, by illiteracy, by 
prejudices, by artificial social barriers, by achieving leadership, by 
social changes such as migration. 

™G. A. Coe, A Social Theory of Religious Education (Scribners, 1917), p. 68, 


ISOLATION IOI 





4. 
5 


bd 


e 


COON 


SPO MNANARY 


Temporary and self-imposed isolation is necessary to reflection. 
Isolation is cumulative. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. ‘What is isolation? 
. Why are animal groups more isolated from each other than are 


human groups? 


. What does Caspar Hauser’s life show? 


Give a new illustration of spatial isolation? 
How are pioneering and isolation related? 


. Explain: Group organization isolates. 


How does patriotism foster isolation? 
Why has religion been guilty of creating so much isolation? 


. Explain the doubly isolating effects of prejudice. 


Give a new illustration of the statement that social changes create 
isolation. 


. How does wealth isolate ? 
. Explain: Temporary isolation is needful. 


PROBLEMS 


. In what fundamental way is the “stranger” isolated? 
. Who is the more isolated, a sympathetic person or an intellectual 


person? 


. In what ways are hoboes isolated? 
. How is it that isolation in cities may be greater than in rural districts? 
. In what ways is college life isolated from the everyday life of the 


world? 


. Explain: “Whoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or 


a god.” 


. In what ways is the isolation of the hermit and the prophet different? 
. In what ways is the only child isolated? 
. What is the relation of segregation to isolation? 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS, 


Bohannon, E. W., Pedagogical Seminary V 1475-95. 
Covat, R., Une Forme du mal du siecle (Paris, 1904). 
Feurbach, P., Caspar Hauser, Trans. by Linberg (London, 1834). 


102 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


Gillette, J. M., Rural Sociology (Macmillan, 1922), Ch. XXV. 

Neter, Eugene, Das einzige Kind und seine Erziehung (Munchen, 1914). 

Park and Burgess, Jntroduction to the Science of Sociology (University of 
Chicago Press, 1921), Ch. IV. 

Semple, E. C., Influences of Geographic Environment (Holt, 1911), 
Ch. XIII. . 

Tredgold, A. F., Mental Deficiency (Macmillan, 1920), 279-305. 

Whitely, Opal S., The Story of Opal (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1920). 





CHAPTER IX 
STIMULATION 


TIMULATION is the primary process in social psychology. It de- 

pends on social contacts.*. In its simplest form contact is a physical 
matter; then, contact refers to mental proximity based on devices of com- 
munication; and finally, contact refers to that solidarity and interdepend- 
ence which is produced by a common political, economic, and social life.? 
Contacts may be plotted, suggests Park and Burgess, in terms of social 
distance; the shorter the social distance the more attractive or the more 
repulsive may be the outcome.* The members of a group are in closer 
contact than is an outsider with the group members, but the result of this 
closer relationship may be either increasingly congenial or antagonistic. 
Contact means agreeable or disagreeable stimulation, an increase or de- 
crease of desires, and the rise of favorable or unfavorable responses and 
attitudes. 

Social stimulation creates the main problems of life. Stimulation that 
is only physical produces measurable, automatic, and definitely predictable 
responses, but stimulation of one social being by another may eventuate 
in any one of several possible reactions. Moreover, the response in turn 
may become a stimulus, producing other responses, and so behavior be- 
comes variable and complicated. 

Conflicts of stimuli produce endless problems. The number and 
quality of social contacts which an individual experiences is an index to 
the kind and quality of stimuli to which he is subject; these in turn 
are indicative of the individual’s possibilities of personal growth. Inter- 
stimulating human organisms constitute the essence of @ social situation, 
which is one of the most interesting phases of life. It is the stimulations of 
one person by another that furnish the dynamic elements in a social situa- 
tion; it is these vibrant factors that produce mental and social changes. 


DETERMINANTS OF STIMULATION 


The nature and quality of social stimulation are affected by countless 
factors ; five groups of these will be treated here. At birth the child seems 


*A splendid discussion of social contacts is given by Park and ae Introduc- 
tion to the Science of Sociology (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1921), Ch. V. 
» Lbid., p. 282. 
* Tbid., p. 283. 


103 


104 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





puny and helpless, but under good care and with environmental stimuli it 
develops along distinctive lines and ultimately may develop vast reservoirs 
of psychical power. The child which at first can do nothing but cry, may 
later by virtue of proper stimulation become a world benefactor. 

1. Social stimulation depends on original human nature, with its in- 
herited reflexes, its instinctive tendencies, its aptitudes, its temperament. 
Human nature is not only self-stimulative, but it is ready to respond to 
certain elemental types of stimuli. The child at birth will react to a very 
limited range of stimuli, chiefly to those of hunger that are set up at more 
or less regular intervals within him. As he develops he responds to 
greater and more complicated stimuli, so that apparently his original nature 
steadily differentiates into increasingly complicated conduct. 

The child’s helplessness and his cries for aid are all-powerful stimuli 
to his mother, other mothers, women in general, and even stalwart men. 
Since social environments are made up of folks with responsive natures, 
the original nature of the infant, the child, or even the adult, constitutes 
the chief source of stimulation in our human world. Original nature thus | 
not only determines the degree to which an individual may react to stimuli, 
but is is also the chief stimulative factor. 

2. The number and quality of social stimuli which a person experiences 
depends partly on physical environment. In a desert, the Polar region, or 
a mountain fastness, social contacts are relatively few and simple. In a 
fertile river valley of the Temperate Zone contacts and resulting stimuli 
may become numerous and varied. By migration, one may deliberately 
escape from an area of sparse stimuli into one of many and rich stimuli, 
as when a farm youth goes to the city. 

The physical resources of each region largely determine the occupational 
activities of the inhabitants, and to a degree the thought life also. Ina 
new country where oil, coal, or gold abounds, the mining of them colors 
popular aspirations and stimuli; where there are no such resources and the 
soil is poor the marauding life or the contemplative life may prevail. 

3. A given person’s social stimuli may be determined in part by family 
and race connections. He has no choice in these matters and yet the 
resultant types of stimuli are fateful; whole groups of social contacts 
are determined for him. Racial standards centuries old constitute his 
social atmosphere. The traditions of his family and his race become his 
in the childhood years; it will be hard to escape these in later years even 
when life conditions have changed. 


*E. L. Thorndike, The Original Nature of Man, Vol. I of Educational Psychology 
(Teachers College, Columbia University, 1913). 


STIMULATION 105 


4. Powerful stimuli, perhaps the most effective of all, come from play- 
mates, schoolfellows, friends of the family, religious associates. These 
stimuli originate with the child’s first playmates who live on the same street 
with him. For the early play years many of the chief stimuli come 
from companions living within a short distance of his home. They exert 
an amazing influence over him—in his use of language, of his methods 
of play, his favorite games, and most of his attitudes. His companions 
often surpass his parents in furnishing influential social contacts. 

A child’s social contacts are largely determined for him by his parents 
in deciding to live or in being forced to live in a given neighborhood. 
Parents rarely realize the role they play in their children’s development 
when they select or have selected for them by circumstances, a neighbor- 
hood in which to live. 

5. Behind parental, racial, and associate contacts there are group herit- 
ages which perhaps excel all other factors in determining social stimuli. 
The attitudes of the family group, of play, school, racial, and other 
groups are largely determined by heritages. The particular language 
which a person speaks, his ethics, his religious views, his political beliefs, 
cannot be understood outside a knowledge of his group heritages. 

The driving potency of the group heritage in controlling stimuli are 
made vivid in the following hypothetical situation: 

If the earth were struck by one of Mr. Wells’s comets, and if, in conse- 
quence, every human being now alive were to lose all the knowledge and 
habits which he had acquired from preceding generations (though retaining 
unchanged all his own powers of invention, and memory, and habituation) 
nine-tenths of the inhabitants of London or New York would be dead in a 
month, and 99 per cent of the remaining tenth would be dead in six months. 
They would have no language to express their thoughts, and no thoughts but 
vague reverie. They could not read notices, or drive motors or horses. They 
would wander about led by the inarticulate cries of a few naturally dominant 
individuals, drowning themselves, as thirst came on, in hundreds at the river- 
side landing places, looting those shops where the smell of decaying food 
attracted them, and perhaps at the end stumbling on the expedient of 
cannibalism.° 


A large body of materials which reveal the stimulation that comes 
through group heritage is found in the history of religion. Among primi- 
tive peoples an infant is born into an atmosphere of animal-worship. In 
a Homeric age, the child is stimulated to worship gods with the fitful 
human traits of character. Still later, the religious conception of God 
is that of a king, an autocratic monarch; and the child’s religious contacts 
and stimuli are determined in this wise. 

®Graham Wallas, Our Social Heritage (Yale Univ. Press, 1921), p. 16. 


106 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





Even the intellectual contacts and stimuli of scholars are predominantly 
those of group heritages. The most unbiased contributions to knowledge 
cannot escape them. In an introductory page to his chief work, Lester 
F. Ward, the eminent American sociologist and modest seeker after truth 
announces: “That my own contribution was simply a product of the Zeit- 
geist I have never pretended to question.’”® 


CRISIS AND STIMULATION 


It is in crises that social stimuli function most vigorously. Catastrophes, 
wars, personal crises create new and unanticipated stimuli. Families of 
wealth may suddenly find themselves bankrupt, or persons struggling be- 
low the subsistence level may unexpectedly fall heir to a fortune. A flood, 
tornado, earthquake, reduce an entire population to the same level of 
human need, and the high and low alike experience entirely new social 
contacts. In modern warfare the soldier experiences one crisis after 
another; he finds himself billeted in the home of a people speaking a . 
strange tongue. Moreover, he marches and shares trench life with men 
from the ends of the earth. 

Inventions, discoveries, travel, although not so spectacular bring on 
crises of a milder nature but which lead to deep and abiding change. An 
invention creates new occupational groupings, and may completely reor- 
ganize the contacts and stimuli of many persons, of families, or even 
communities. Travel unfolds new situations, and brings strangers to- 
gether in a never-ending chain of newly stimulating friendships. A crisis 
is a disturbance of habit.’ The disturbance may have been caused by a 
new and forceful stimulus. Moreover, after a habit has been upset, the 
reorganization of one’s activities will depend largely on the prevailing 
stimuli at the time. 


PERSONAL GENERATION OF STIMULI 


The person is the chief generating center of social stimuli. The self- 
assertive child becomes leader of his group, and by his original sugges- 
tions may stimulate its members to mischief and destruction or to a cru- 
sade of mercy and good will. As a man grows older, opportunities of 
choosing his associates and therewith the types of social contacts by which 


* Dynamic Sociology (Appleton, 1915), p. vii. 
pias I. Thomas, Source Book for Social Origins (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1909), 
p. 18. 


STIMULATION 107 


he will be stimulated multiply. In this re-valuing of his associates and 
revising of associations lies perhaps more secrets of personal growth or 
decay than in any other phase of social interaction. As one after another 
of the propinquity playmates drifts away, the proportion of chosen asso- 
ciates increases. 

A person as he matures also experiences changes in the personnel of his 
associates. The significant factor in this process is that the social stimuli 
to which a person will be subject undergo change. In the business and 
professional fields particularly the question of social contacts and stimuli 
is preeminent. The merchant through salesmen and advertisements makes 
a business of seeking new contacts, although of course there are customers 
who do not actually influence him. The young lawyer and physician seeks 
new social contacts, for out of these will come new clients and patients. 
The college president in quest of endowments makes as many contacts as 
possible with moneyed people. In all this, however, persons are influenced 
more than they may suspect, for they are thus indirectly determining the 
nature of new stimuli to which they may respond. No choices in life are 
so potent in influencing a person and determining his character as choices 
of associates, for these largely furnish one’s social stimuli. 


TEACHING AND STIMULATION 


Teaching is a stimulation process. It is the main business of the teacher 
to stimulate the pupil to think for himself rather than to think the teacher’s 
thoughts after him. Even in the elementary grades the teacher’s function 
is not to teach reading, arithmetic, and writing, but to stimulate the pupil 
to think about people, their ways, and their problems. In so doing the 
pupil will learn reading, arithmetic, and writing, partly through self- 
stimulation as a result of his growing interest in people. 

In college work the function of the instructor is clearly that of getting 
students to think for themselves. He frequently meets with the traditional 
attitude that the instructor is to “lecture” and the pupil to memorize. Ac- 
cording to this plan, students are helpless. Note this dilemma of a student: 


Professor X in an education course made statements which were directly 
opposite to those made on the subject by Professor Y in a psychology class. 
Now which am I to believe? I’m all muddled. I came to college to learn the 
truth, and now I don’t know what I know. 


W. H. R. Rivers cites two examples of the antagonism of persons, 
even mature persons, to being stimulated to think for themselves: 


108 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


Not long ago at a meeting of the Psychological Society my friend Dr. 
Myers read a paper, one part of which I criticised. There was present a 
well-known medical teacher, so distinguished that he had been knighted, who 
got up and said that he had come to the meeting expecting to be instructed 
by two such eminent authorities as Myers and myself, and that he had been 
horrified at finding that instead of being told by us what was the truth he had 
found us disagreeing with one another.® 


The other example is that of a distinguished university teacher whom 
Dr. Rivers heard objecting to Well’s Outline of History “because he gave 
footnotes which disagreed with the text.” “How disturbing,” he said, “it 
must be to the student’s mind!’ In each of these instances teaching as a 
stimulating process is ignored. If teachers disagree then the student has 
a chance to weigh the evidence and come to an independent conclusion. 


INTERGROUP STIMULATION 


Groups, like persons, stimulate one another. The competition between 
football teams is mutually stimulative; debating squads spur one another 
to their greatest efforts. Business houses stimulate each other to sales- 
manship feats. Rival cities are interstimulative. Nations continually 


electrify one another by diplomatic moves, military preparations, economic 


schemes. 


CONCLUSIONS 


Life is a maze of social stimuli and continuous interstimulation. Social 
stimuli function all the time and everywhere—while persons are engaged 
in securing sustenance and shelter, in struggling for personal success, in 
performing social service. All conversation is interstimulation. News- 
papers daily flood communities with destructive or constructive stimuli. 
Prayer is social contact and stimulation. Opposition, conflict, crisis are 
stimulative. Rewards, success, achievement are vibrant. Interstimulation 
is almost synonymous with the theme to be considered next, namely, com- 
munication. 


PRINCIPLES 


I. Stimulation is the chief result of social contacts. 

2. Stimulation of one human being by another is the fundamental ele- 
ment in all mental and social growth. 

3. Interstimulating organisms constitute a social situation. 


“Psychology and Politics (Harcourt, Brace: 1923), p. 105. 


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STIMULATION 109 


. Stimulation is naturally followed by response, affirming or disapprov- 
ing. 

. Physical environments determine many social stimuli. 

. Primary groups furnish the most significant social stimuli. 

Group heritage yields a far-reaching power over stimuli. 

The nature of social stimuli often changes sharply in times of crises. 
. Within limits, self control and trained judgment enable a person to 
determine the stimuli to which he will respond. 

. Groups like persons stimulate each other. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. What is stimulation ? 

. What is the relation of stimulation to social contacts? 

How is stimulation and original human nature connected? 

How does physical environment influence social stimulation? 

. Illustrate the influence of family on stimulation. 

Illustrate how race affects social stimuli. 

Why are one’s personal associates so effective in furnishing stimuli? 
Explain the connection between group heritages and stimulation. 
What is Graham Wallas’ illustration of the potency of social heritage? 
What is the connection between crises and stimulation? 

. How may a person best change his ruling social stimuli? 

. Illustrate intergroup stimulation. 


PROBLEMS 


. Explain the terms, contact, stimuli, response. 

What are the differences between internal and external stimuli? 

. Which furnish greater stimuli, friends or opponents ¢ 

Why is association such an influential phase of stimulation? 

Why is communication so vital to stimulation? 

. From which have you received the most helpful stimuli, your father 
or your mother? 

. In what ways does punishment act as a helpful stimulant? 

. Why are rewards effective as stimuli? 

. Illustrate fear as a stimulus. 

. Compare fear and love as stimuli. 

. In what ways may a person best determine the nature of the social 
stimuli to which he will respond? 


110 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Bristol, L. M., Social Adaptation (Harvard University Press, 1915), 
Part iv, 

Park and Burgess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology (University 
of Chicago Press, 1921), Ch. V. 

Ross, E. A., Princtples of Sociology (Century, 1921), Ch. XIV. 

Wallas, Graham, Our Social Heritage (Yale University Press, 1921), 
Ch. IT. 

Watson, J. B., Psychology (Lippincott, 1919), Ch. III. 

Woodworth, R. S., Psychology (Holt, 1921), Ch. III. 

Dynamic Sociology (Columbia University Press, 1918), Chs. VII, 
VILE 

Yerkes, R. M., Introduction to Psychology (Holt, 1911), Ch. XXVII. 





CHAPTE Rex 
COMMUNICATION 


OMMUNICATION makes intersocial stimulation possible. Without 

it organic forms of life would not be able to contact and stimulate 

one another ; the world would remain like a forest, with individual forms 

but no mental activity. Change would not occur except by the operation 

of physical forces. There would be no mental growth, and isolation would 
rule everywhere.* 

Communication develops at equal pace with civilization. Primitive life 
which is characterized by no telephones, no newspapers, no written alpha- 
bet, no means of communication except sounds, signs, and pantomimic 
and facial gestures, develops no large-scale governments, no world re- 
ligions, and no dependability of rational thought. Animal life with its 
means of communication limited to only a few simple vocal and pantomimic 
gestures seems to maintain no connections with the past save through in- 
herited mechanisms and no anticipations at all of the future. The social 
organization of a bee hive or an ant hill appears to be inherited; no change 
takes place in its nature unless the physical factors first change.2 The 
means of communication of paramecia which are restricted to tropistic or 
reflex reactions are so simple that no advancement in type is generated. 


ELEMENTS OF COMMUNICATION 


1. The first requisite for communication is inherited mechanisms of 
sense organs, afferent nerves, cortical centers, efferent nerves, and mus- 
cular apparatus. These must have the possibility of recognizing gestures, 
or the beginnings of acts, and of responding with appropriate gestures in 
a way that indicates a consciousness of meaning. 

Communication is based on an original nature that is capable of making 
responses. Sticks and stones not at all; lower animals in a very slight 
way ; higher animals in a rudimentary fashion; and normal human beings 
in a noteworthy degree—are capable of responding to stimuli in meaning- 

*No finer contribution to the subject of communication can be found than in 
Social Organization (Scribners, 1909), Part II, by C. H. Cooley. 


*Cf. W. M. Wheeler, Social Life Among the Insects (Harcourt, Brace: 1923). 
III 


112 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





ful ways. Communication as a human phenomenon thus depends upon 
an original human nature capable of responding in increasingly more elab- 
orate ways to stimull. 

2. Among higher animals, for example, the birds, there is a definite 
group of cries and calls, of ‘stimuli and appropriate responses, with some 
semblance of consciousness of meaning. The mother bird utters a shrill 
cry and the young who run to cover are saved from the impending danger, 
while the others are pounced upon and destroyed by the swooping enemy. 
Similarity of response of a special type has survival value and thus lan- 
guage among animals becomes a characteristic. A set of simple sounds, 
or calls, and cries, with shades of feeling, thus constitute an objective 
evidence of language. 

Higher animal life also abounds with other evidences of communicating 
symbols and meanings. The strutting of the peacock illustrates the com- 
plex field of non-vocal communication. A variety of methods of panto- 
mimic gesture is resorted to by the male in his courtship attentions to the 


female. A mocking bird, in swooping down and pecking the head of the | 


house-cat which has captured and eaten a nest of young mocking birds, 
sends the house-cat to cover, and furnishes to the observer a situation 
where stimuli are expressed and appropriate survival responses are 
promptly made. The house-cat ruffling her fur and giving chase to a 
blustering pup which turns tail and dashes away affords another illustration 
of silent language,—a form of communication less diversified and elab- 
orated than vocal language.. 

Another type of social situation illuminating the nature of communica- 
tion is the mother-child phenomenon. The cry of the babe, a survival 
cry, produces a quick protective response on the part of the mother. Babes 
whose danger cries are not regarded, quickly succumb; and thus the 
maternal response as well as the infantile cry are the products of vital 
needs in social situations. 

The human babe cries—and thus speaks or communicates—in a half 


dozen or more different ways. To one who is unacquainted with children, — 


these different cries sound alike, but to the mother they are meaningful. 
There are the particular cries of hunger, of physical pain, of fear, of 


anger, of general discomfort and fretfulness, and of the acquired habit — 
to be taken up and rocked. Each of these cries develops in the years that — 
follow into whole vocabularies, Chinese, Italian, Russian, English, accord- — 
ing to parental tongue. If acquired cries, such as the cry to be picked — 


up and soothed, do not produce the vaguely desired result, they die out. 
In other words, the cry and the recognition of its meaning are inseparable. 


i 


COMMUNICATION 113 





and language is comprised of symbols and their meaning. The significance 
of the symbol must be clear to the individual with whom communication 
is held. 

In the case of the mother and babe, it should be noted that the babe’s 
gestures or cries have much more meaning to the mother than the mother’s 
gestures to the babe. Toacrying child of tender years in a public meeting, 
no responses of the parents seem to have any effective meaning. Learning 
evidently rests upon getting a meaning for stimuli. 

3. In the next place, a similarity of original nature is to be emphasized 
as essential. The dying cry of the chicken in the cat’s jaw produces no 
disturbing activity on the part of the nearby mother-Newfoundland; and 
a babe’s cries of hunger arouse no response from the nesting swallow 
under the eaves. The mother who responds quickly, without thinking, to 
the crying child possesses a native constitution similar to that of the child. 
Her quick protection of an injured animal also discloses an original nature 
similar to that of the animal. The fact that she does not respond to cries 
of trap-ensnared rodents or other destructive animals seems best explained 
by the fact that she has developed a psychical background of dislike for 
destructive animals and that this dislike overcomes the tendency to sympa- 
thetic response arising out of similarity of structure and functions. Com- 
munication therefore implies similarity of original nature. 

4. Communication arises out of common needs such as those for food, 
protection, and continuance of the species. In meeting these needs, in- 
dividuals tend to develop like responses to like stimuli together with a uni- 
formity of structure and function which is the essence of original human 
nature and of communication. 

5. Communication involves gestures or symbols of various types. 
Sometimes these are pantomimic, that is, made by the hands and shoulders ; 
‘sometimes they are facial ; and again, they are vocal, involving an elaborate 
development of the vocal apparatus and of a system of sound-signs, 
together with alphabets, words, languages, and literatures. 

(1) Gestures of the hands and shoulders are common among the deaf, 
in fact, deaf and dumb alphabets and languages represent a unique develop- 
ment of gesturing and of communication. Foreigners in a strange en- 
vironment resort continually to the use of the hands in trying to make 
their wants known. The teacher of English to immigrants may begin 
with the “action” method and by the use of the hands simultaneously 
point to and pronounce the names of objects, thus conveying through 
symbols a variety of meanings. In illustrating the significance of verbs, 
for example, the verb, to run, the teacher may run, employing the whole 


114 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


body in action as a symbol. Whenever at a loss for a word a person 
often resorts to gesticulations in order to convey his meaning. In a moment 
of_anger or of excitement the pantomimic gestures become vigorous and 
follow one another in rapid succession. The orator is generally a past- 
master in the use of pantomimic gestures, which may be of the broad 
sweeping kind, the clenched fist pugnaciously directed at the audience, or of 
the menacing forefinger type. 

The ordinary gestures of the hands and shoulders convey meanings 
which are easy to grasp. They resemble the pantomimic gestures of ani- 
mals, such as those of playful cubs, of fighting dogs, and of friendly birds. 
Pantomimic gestures are practical, for example, the open extended hand, 
or the clenched fist. They are unconsciously imitated on a large scale; an 
entire people may develop characteristic gestures of the hands or shoulders. 

Pantomimic gestures of civilized human beings, such as a deaf and dumb 
“sion” language, are related to the ordinary gesture of the hands and 
shoulders of primitive people. The latter are often able to communicate 
in this way with civilized people. For example, it is reported that at the 
World’s Fair in Chicago the Eskimos began to use “signs,” and carried 
on the rudiments of a conversation with deaf and dumb Americans. 
The two groups possessed an elementary medium of communication. 

(2) Facial gestures center about the eyes and mouth. Like pantomimic 
gestures, they are easily and universally intelligible. If you are perfectly 
frank and unreserved when you look at me, I can tell how you feel about 
me even though you do not speak my vocal language. The smile of wel- 
come, the glance of hatred, the lowered brow are understood the world 
round. The foreigner always and naturally gives careful attention to the 
facial gestures of the people whom he meets, whether he be a Greek immi- 
grant in the United States or an American in Turkey. Although he may 
require several years to learn the vocal language of a country, he under- 
stands facial gestures at once and has a simple but common basis of com- 
munication with the natives. 

Animals, children, primitive people, and even shrewd business men often 
communicate volumes to one another by the silent method. Attitudes of 
body and particularly of facial expression stand for whole acts with accom- 
panying meanings. An examination of the following description of a fight 
between two native boys of Fakaofu discloses communication of a positive 
sort by pantomimic and facial gestures without the use of a sound language. 


The matter did not come to blows. They stood perfectly still some distance 
apart, looking at one another under lowering brows for several seconds. 
Then a guick threatening movement on one side would be responded to by a 


COMMUNICATION 115 


defiant one on the other, and then followed another spell of mutual inspection. 
These became longer and longer, and the threatening movement less and less 
energetic, until each went his own way and the whole (fight) was over. The 
whole affair was conducted in perfect silence.* 


All acting on the stage or off the stage discloses the power of pantomimic 
and facial gestures. The motion picture or the silent drama, with only a 
small degree of help from the printed word and no assistance at all from 
the spoken word, produces bursts of applause, cries of fear, and hissing 
of no uncertain meaning. Here we have perhaps the most common and 
positive demonstration of silent communication, with its sets of bodily 
symbols interpreted in common ways by people of a common original 
nature, and common mechanisms of response. 

(3) Vocal language arises out of the sudden exhalation of the breath— 
in the exclamatory cry.* This exclamation in turn is preceded by an un- 
anticipated change in the social or physical situation that requires or is 
naturally followed by quick adjustments. Sometimes the exclamation is 
a protective cry, similar to the warning call or cry of the mother bird. Out 
of the needs produced by shifting social situations language has its psy- 
chological origin, and out of the same types of situations vocal languages 
and alphabets are produced. It is these same social situations which also 
are related to the size and richness of human vocabularies, and which in 
fact are apparently the main determining factors in vocabulary building. 
The first use of vocal speech is to express pleasure or displeasure ;> thus, 
it represents affective nature. 

An elemental step in the process of language formation is the naming 
of objects, that is, the creating of nouns. When the baby cries “ba ba,” 
“pa pa,” and ‘‘ma ma,” he is unconsciously suggesting the general names 
by which he, his father, and his mother have become known. The rise 
of verbs, except as they are sometimes used as nouns, comes later. A verb 
involves the recognition of two objects and particularly of the relationship 
between them. Abstract concepts are the last phases of language to acquire 
definite meaning. Although they may attract the attention of young 
children they are rarely well understood even by mature persons. A five 
year old child who possesses a considerable vocabulary of nouns, verbs, 
and other word symbols will persistently ask such questions as these: 
What is “honesty”? What does “honest to goodness” mean? What does 

*J. J. Lister, “Notes on the Natives of Fakaofu,” Journal of the Anthropological 
Institute, XXI1: 40. 

*See Watson, Psychology (Lippincott, 1919), Ch. IX, for a detailed account of 


the basic psychological factors in language formation. 
*Herman Klaatsch, The Evolution and Progress of Mankind (Stokes, 1923), p. 130. 


116 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





“JT doubt it” mean? And an adult finds difficulty in reducing such a term 
as “democracy” to a meaning that is universally understood and accepted. 
One of the simpler forms of vocal communication is whistling. Young 
people communicate with one another, parents call children and so forth, 
by simple whistles. Fraternities and sororities sometimes develop specific 
whistle calls. Some primitive people have even made a vocal language out 
of whistling ; not only tunes but specific messages are thus conveyed. For 
example: | 


In the island of Gomera everybody except a few dignitaries can converse 
at a distance by whistling, and express anything that words can express. They 
have a special note for every syllable. Natives of the Cameroons sometimes 
whistle a message instead of drumming it. Frobenius found that his expedition 
to Togoland was announced in this way to the German official forty miles 
away. Other tribes in the north of Africa had the same practise, but the 
Arabs suppressed it.° 


As new social situations arise, new symbols of expression are needed. 
Sometimes communication is the shortest cut between two ideas, namely, » 
by a new slang phrase. That is to say, language is always in process of 
creation. As arule new communicative gestures have been created fortui- 
tously and thoughtlessly. An increased degree of conscious control of the 
processes of inventing language would tend to prevent the formation of 
illogical language monstrosities and ill-cultured “slanguage”’; it would 
result in a perfected means of vocal and written communication. 

In every case of pantomimic, facial, or vocal gesture, the gesture rep- 
resents the beginning of a whole act.?’ As soon as the second party recog- 
nizes the act for which the given gesture is the beginning, communication 
is taking place. The response will consist of another gesture, which in 
turn is the beginning of another act—and communication by interchange 
of pantomimic, facial, and vocal attitudes and suitable responses takes 
place. Hence communication is a social process, consisting in an inter- 
change of gestures and appropriate responses between persons possess- 
ing a common group background and a common original nature; and 
language is disclosed as a conversation of attitudes and responses. Social 
life is basic to and develops out of interchanges of symbols and their 
meanings between individuals. 

An investigator of mountain social life reports the following occurrence :8 


*Klaatsch, ibid., p. 130. 

™See G. H. Mead, “Social Consciousness and the Consciousness of Meaning,” 
Psychological Bul., VII: 397-405. 

*R. G. Fuller, Rural Child Welfare (Macmillan, 1922), p. 153. 


COMMUNICATION 117 


Where ore of West Virginia’s creeks begins, a woman of our party made 
friends with a girl of 14, who, after the ice was broken, said simply, “I like 
you.’ And when this new found friend, “the stranger,’ went away, the little 
girl climbed up to a ledge of rock overlooking the trail, and the woman, 
looking back till the trail turned in the forest, saw limned against the skyline 
the lone figure of a lonely girl in calico. The woman waved but received 
no response. The explanation of this omission, perhaps, is to be found in 
another instance, when the visitor waved back to a little group of mother and 
children standing before the cabin door and overheard the question of the 
oldest of the girls, “Ma, wha’d she do that fer?” 


In these cases the gestures were apparently without meaning. The ideas 
which the pantomimic gestures represented were not comprehended. Com- 
munication was incomplete—the gesture was given, but the meaning was 
not manifest to the recipient. The symbols of language, thus, are asso- 
ciated with some element or group of elements of experience before they 
have even “rudimentary linguistic significance.”® It is in this “element” 
of experience that the “meaning” of language symbols is found. More- 
over, “the symbols that ticket off experience” are associated with groups of 
experiences, not with a single, isolated experience.*° Language symbols 
give form to culture. “They are invisible garments that drape themselves 
about our spirit and give a predetermined form to all its symbolic ex- 
-pressions.” ** 

6. The most common form of communication is ordinary conversation, 
or talk. Talk constitutes the essence of discussion, which will be analyzed 
in a later chapter and the basis of opinion, also the theme of an entire 
chapter. Conversation, thus, is a vital as well as a fascinating theme in 
social psychology. The best type of conversationalist possesses several 
attributes, a few of which may be noted. 

(1) The best conversationalist has something to give, besides words; 
he is not merely a fluent talker. He has more than a large vocabulary and 
a wide command of English. While a mastery of linguistics is an evidence 
of culture and opens doors to the best thought of all civilized peoples, 
yet a superior conversationalist is not a linguist only, for he may be able 
“to speak in seven languages but to think in none.” He has a rich person- 
ality, the product of many and fundamental social experiences. He pro- 
jects this personality into social situations and throws helpful sympathetic 
stimuli into the lives of those whom he contacts. He communicates to 
others the meaning of life’s richest experiences. 

(2) A superior conversationalist knows at least a few phases of life 

* Edward Sapir, Language (Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1921), p. 9. 


* Ibid., p. 11. 
* Ibid., p. 236. 


118 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


well and authoritatively, but he does not talk “shop.” At this point most 
persons are helpless. They know and can talk only about one thing—their 
daily work. Outside this field they have nothing to converse about, ex- 
cept the weather and items of gossip. The praiseworthy conversationalist 
has overcome this difficulty ‘by developing a number of avocational inter- 
ests. Through these he projects his personality into the lives of other 
persons in stimulating ways. Perhaps he has traveled and observed 
carefully when traveling, thus saturating his mental experiences with a 
multitude of social and physical contacts, and enlarging continually his 
horizon of knowledge. 

(3) A superior conversationalist analyzes human attitudes and relates 
his funds of avocational data to the major attitudes of other people. His 
conversation enlightens others, not concerning himself, but regarding 
themselves. His conversation does not give an impression of a big “I” but 
of an important “‘you.” He focuses communication not only in his own 
avocational experiences but in the attitudes, needs, and interests of his 
listeners. 

(4) A superior conversationalist listens as well as talks. He is not a 
monologist ; he does not monopolize the talking, but, what is more signifi- 
cant, he stimulates other people to talk. It is a part of his function to get 
his would-be listeners to contribute their unique and significant experiences 
to the social fund of mental interaction. He endeavors to learn something 
from everyone whom he meets and to see that other individuals likewise — 
learn new meanings of life from their social contacts. 

(5) A superior conversationalist is a director of conversation. He is 
a skilful questioner. He elicits information from the bashful and halts 
the talk of the wordy. He not only does not monopolize conversation 
himself, but he permits no one else to do so. He does not simply make 
his own contributions to discussion, but he stimulates everyone else to do 
likewise. By means of the expert conversationalist, thus, communication — 
may reach a high level of perfection. 

(6) Communication often starts with the feeling-emotional reactions, 
and culminates in music, song, poetry, and the other arts. It may partially 
short-circuit the intellectual processes. The gesture possesses a feeling 
character and may become barely recognizable intellectually. It is apt to 
become highly symbolic. Through art symbols with their meanings inter- 
preted according to personal temperaments and often unanalyzed experi- 
ences, communication may reach the heights of ecstasy or be dignified by 
those great silences of recognition that are too profound for expression in 
vocal language. At such times, stirred by artistic stimuli, it seems that the 


COMMUNICATION 119 


finer psychical mechanisms of individuals, the souls of persons, vibrate in 
perfect though silent harmony. 

(7) Communication through the efforts of reason has reached a stupe- 
fying complexity. The invention of numerical systems and mathematical 
formule has enabled men to understand one another when considering 
the composition of burning suns, when measuring parallaxes, or manipu- 
lating radium in infinitesimal quantities. The syllogisms of logic have 
carried communication into the remote domains of abstract metaphysical 
reasoning. Science employing mathematical conceptions and logical syllo- 
gisms with kindergarten ease has expanded human communication over a 
territory extending from microscopic to telescopic expansion. At each of 
these extremes philosophic reasoning and religious faith pick up the golden 
threads of communication, weaving them into systems of thought of uni- 
versal import. 

(8) Communication moreover profits by material inventions, such as the 
railroad, telegraph, cable, the daily newspaper, telephone, wireless, and 
the radio. These objective systems of conveying the thoughts and feelings 
of people have made opinion public, created the public as a new form of 
social group, and set the pulses of millions beating in daily unison. The 
significance of these developments will be presented in later chapters 
‘on the subjects of opinion and of publics. Suffice it to say here that by 
means of these communicative inventions, a person may boldly set 
himself up as “a center of judgment of all that goes on in large worlds 
of many interests.” His possibilities of communication become endless, 
even to the point of destroying the opportunities for reflection. 


RESULTS OF COMMUNICATION 


1. With the multiplication of communicative machinery, such as the 
telephone, and the many square yards of daily newspaper, the demands 
upon the time and energy of an ordinary person whose work has attracted 
public attention soon defeat their own ends, and excess communication 
smothers reflection and exhausts mental resources. The early life of the 
race moved with geologic slowness because of lack of communicative 
means and of socio-mental interaction; but on the other hand, modern life 
vibrates with a swiftness that breeds superficiality and disintegration, be- 
cause the means of communication are multiplying faster than the op- 
portunities for reflective analysis. As the pace increases, communication 
itself becomes a surface phenomenon, except for a few of the intellectually 
élite who in physical or social science laboratories, are inventing new tools 


120 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


of increasing scientific accuracy for understanding the deepest and most 
fundamental laws of physical and societary life. 

2. At its best, however, communication is magnifying the power of 
social vision, enabling persons to make “morning surveys’ of the universe, 
and creating a new public opinion that leads to social amelioration. "What 
the future has in store cannot be safely predicted, for only recently has 
the radio so extended the bounds of communication that national presidents 
contemplate calling their constituents together in municipal parks through- 
out the national realm and addressing them by word of mouth. It is 
stated that even the Pope is contemplating addressing by radio the hosts 
of his followers assembled in groups throughout the world. The latter 
possibility, however, presages the hastening of the day already predicted 
when all the people of the world will speak and understand a common 
tongue as they always have understood the same cry of fear or pain, and 
as most people enjoy martial music and other forms of art. In the cry 
of fear, of hunger, of excitement, human beings have a common and uni- 
versal means of communication. From these elemental symbols arising 
out of common neural mechanisms, themselves preceded by common or- 
ganic needs, the symbols of communication have evolved until circum- 


stances such as the invention of the radio and its commercialization may - 
hasten the coming of a universal language for mankind. But symbols are. 


after all only the expression of meanings, the evolution of which is at the 
heart of social evolution. 

3. Teaching is a process of transforming unintelligible and higher ideas 
and methods into intelligible and lower (from the standpoint of the learn- 
er) signs and symbols. Frequently the successful teacher whether of 
philosophy, science, music, or cooking, is one who goes through a whole 
act in the presence of the pupils. As the latter learn, the teacher reduces 
the “enacting” process, reproducing only a few motions or gestures, and 
finally giving only now and then, “a cry, a look, and attitude.” The 
orchestra leader finds his trained players responding at once and accurately 
to his slightest facial and pantomimic gestures. The teacher of philosophy 
speaks to his pupils in enigmas until perchance by a few deft chalk marks 
on the blackboard he releases a flood of light. 

The importance of the primary groups for teaching has been well estab- 
lished.’* Its significance is found partly in the fact that in primary groups 
such as the family, play, and other “face-to-face” groups, communication 
functions most freely and easily. In them there is a basic communality of 


“The concept of “primary groups” is one of the outstanding contributions of 
C. H. Cooley to the field of social psychology. 


COMMUNICATION I2I 


experience, and the slightest gesture has a meaning. The face-to-face 
group is the best instrument for communication. 

4. Communication is close to the heart of a community or a common 
life. It indicates the presence of common factors in the original nature of 
all human beings.** Its development makes possible the expansion and 
enrichment of this common nature. With a very simple or even a very 
elaborate set of communicative machinery, intersocial stimulation occurs; 
and by it human personalities as well as civilization are developed. 

Out of communication comes a recognition of likemindedness and a 
social consciousness. Communication enables us to generate social ideals 
and to realize a complex order of social codperation. But it may lead to 
shrewd dealing, chicanery, organized hatred, destructive competition, and 
war. It opens the possibilities of heaven or hell in societary life. With 
its ever increasing array of gesture-meanings, it constitutes language, 
perhaps the most fundamental social institution. Without it neither the 
family, school, church, the state, nor even human personality as we know 
it, could arise. Through its immediate resultant, namely, interstimulation, 
it opens all the flood-gates of societary enterprise. 

5. Communication leads to organized world progress. It was this 
concept which Woodrow Wilson had in mind when he was speaking in 
’ Europe previous to the meetings of the Paris Conference. “If I cannot 
correspond with you, if I cannot learn your minds, . . . I cannot be your 
friend, and if the world is to remain a body of friends it must have the 
means of friendship, the means of constant friendly intercourse.”!* And 
this practical means of national communication is to be found in “an easy 
and constant method of conference.” | 

The method of conference, “of come, let us reason together,” is perhaps 
the most important means of communication between groups. It is pro- 
ducing measurable results in terms of understanding, amity, and good 
will in the controversies between labor and capital, between races, between 
nations. It develops codperative habits without which persons, and hence 
civilization, could not long survive. 


PRINCIPLES 


I. Communication is the primary phase of intersocial stimulation. 
2. Communication implies a basic community of stimuli-response mech- 


“The fundamental elements in “community” have been discussed at length by 
R. M. Maclver in Community (Macmillan, 1917), particularly in Book III. 

“See the writer’s Essentials of Americanization (Univ. of Southern California 
Pr., 1922), p. 413, for the context of this quotation, 


I22 


0 OM ANRW D4 


WN 


FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


anisms; it arises in part out of common needs; it develops simul- 
taneously with civilization. 


. Communication involves symbols with recognition of their meaning; 


these may be pantomimic, facial, and vocal. 


. Communication is a conversation of attitudes with their appropriate 


responses. 


. Communication magnifies social vision, affords teaching media, pro- 


vides carrier waves for social stimuli, and makes socialization pos- 
sible. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. What is communication ? 


How is communication related to stimulation ? 


. How are common needs a basis of communication? 
. What is a language gesture? 
. Distinguish between pantomimic and facial gestures. 


‘What is the first expression of vocal speech? 
What are the main characteristics of a good talker? 


. How are the arts representative of communication? 


How is communication essential to “world progress” ? 


PROBLEMS 


. What is the social origin of language? 
. Why do people have a strong desire to communicate with others ? 
. What is the chief function of communication ? 


Name one new word or phrase that you have recently added to your 
vocabulary and describe the circumstances under which you made 
the addition. 


. Why is there so much conversation about trivial matters? 

. What is the origin of slang? 

. What is the origin of the idiom? 

. What is the chief attribute of a successful conversationalist ? 

. Why is it difficult for many people to converse at a formal reception? 
. What is a vocal gesture? 

. Explain: A word is a syncopated act. 

. Why are facial gestures similar the world over, whereas each race 


has a different vocal language? 


COMMUNICATION 123 





ASSIGNMENTS AND REPORTS 


Baldwin, J. M., Social and Ethical Interpretations (Macmillan, 1906), 
Pp. 137-48. 

Clow, F. R., Principles of Sociology with Educational Applications (Mac- 
millan, 1920), Ch. 1V. 

Cooley, C. H., Social Organization (Scribners, 1909), Part II. 

Edman, Irvin, Human Traits (Houghton Mifflin, 1920), Ch. X. 

Gillette, J. M., Rural Sociology (Macmillan, 1922), Ch. XVI. 

Judd, C. H., Psychology (Ginn, 1917), Ch. X. 

Lippmann, Walter, Public Opinion (Harcourt, Brace: 1922), Ch. I. 

Maclver, R. M., Community (Macmillan, 1917). 

Mead, G. H., “Social Consciousness and the Consciousness of Meaning,” 
Psychological Bul., V11:397-405. 

Preyer, W., Mental Development in the Child (Appleton, 1907), Ch. VII. 

Tarde, Gabriel, The Laws of Imitation (Holt, 1903), pp. 255-65. 

La Logique sociale (Paris, 1898), Ch. V. 

Todd, A. J., Theortes of Social Progress (Macmillan, 1918), Ch. XXVIII. 

Tylor, E. B., Anthropology (Appleton, 1913), Chs. IV, V, VII. 

‘Watson, J. B., Psychology (Lippincott, 1919), Ch. IX. 

Wundt, William, Elements of Folk Psychology (Macmillan, 1915), pp. 


53-67. 





CHAPTER XI 
SUGGESTION 


UGGESTION is the process of sending out stimuli, consciously or 
unconsciously, planned or not. Imitation is the resultant phase of 
the same social process, and refers to reacting favorably or unfavorably, 


consciously or unconsciously, to the given stimulus. If there is no 


stimulus, suggestion does not exist; and if there is no reaction then imita- 


tion has not occurred. Suggestion cannot be separated from imitation, for 


without imitation, either favorable or contrary, it can not be said to have 
taken place. When suggestion occurs, imitation is a counterpart; and 
vice versa. In other words a suggestion-imitation phenomenon is a unit 
of conduct. Moreover it cannot take place outside of social situations. 
The basis of suggestion-imitation is found in a stimulus-response con- 
dition. In fact suggestion resolves itself into such a condition with all that 
is thereby implied. The implications, however, may become very complex, 


reaching out into various types of suggestion and many forms of imitation, 


producing a large number of combinations of conduct activities. Sugges- 


tion-imitation may stop with the simplest form of cry and the appropriate 
response, or it may extend to a harangue on a street corner, a series of 
campaign speeches, or a world movement. Suggestion-imitation is a phase 
of communication; it ranges from the simplest to the most complicated 
forms of communication; the discussion of it is in effect a specialized 
method of analyzing communicative phenomena. The suggestion phase of 
the process will be discussed here, and imitation in the succeeding chapter. 


BASES OF SUGGESTION 


Suggestion depends for its success on the nature of the habitual re- 
sponses of the possible imitators. If the imitator is accustomed to acting 
in a certain way then a related suggestion will bring out the logical re- 


sponses. If Il am fond of eating apple pie and someone between meals sim- ~ 


ply mentions apple pie, I am quite certain to feel hungry for apple pie. 


If I enjoy baseball games and some one casually refers to a baseball — 


_ game that is in progress near at hand while I am writing these lines, I shall — 


find myself unconsciously laying aside the pen and looking for my cap. 
124 


i 


, 


SUGGESTION 128 





Furthermore, I will go to the game if there are no serious inhibiting im- 
pulses, either instinctive, habitual, or conscious. 

On the other hand, if I am one who has never heard of apple pie, the 
mention of it will produce no response except perhaps that of wonder, in- 
quiry, or fear. If I have no habitual tendencies to attend baseball games, 
then the announcement that one is in progress will scarcely attract 
my attention. It thus is evident that a suggestion normally functions 
within the field of habit. What I am in the habit of doing, I am suggestible 
to; and what I have no habitual response for, I will not respond to. 
Suggestion-imitation is an habituation product, as well as a phase of 
communication. 

The contention of Dr. Boris Sidis that a suggested idea meets at once 
with more or less opposition is too sweeping a statement, and does not dis- 
tinguish between situations.t It is only when the suggested idea calls for 
a response somewhat outside the field of habituation that it meets with 
possible opposition. If it is within that field, other things being equal, that 
the opposition may be violent, or passive. 


DIRECT SUGGESTION 


Suggestion is direct or indirect. If direct, it usually comes in the form 
of a command, and with prestige or authority. It is illustrated by the 
parental command to the child who promptly obeys, by the priestly injunc- 
tion to the worshiper, by the officer’s orders to the private, by the hyp- 
notist’s instructions to his subject. In all these cases the role played by 
habit is fundamental. 

Hypnotism affords a productive field for the study of direct suggestion. 
As a social phenomenon it is as yet not sufficiently understood to be com- 
mended as useful. Under present conditions, the specially trained psy- 
chologist is the only person who is entitled to use hypnotism. Hypnotic 
suggestion finds success in arousing established habits of the subject, who 
may be made to climb, act as if stung by bees, or swim, but who cannot be 
stimulated into activity contrary to organized habits. The application of 
hypnotic suggestion in medical and psychical therapy is still in an experi- 
mental stage. The procedure is usually that of trying to help the patient 
to originate new activity paths so that the physical or mental disturbance 
may be broken and destroyed. In the field of testimony it is argued that 
an alleged offender may be hypnotized and his possible guilt discovered. 
The theory is that a hypnotized person being no longer protected by his 


*The Psychology of Suggestion (Appleton, 1911), p. 15. 


126 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


astute conscious nature will disclose facts that will prove or disclose his 
guilt. The theory has merit if the offense lies in the field of established 
habit; otherwise its unreliability is almost certain. 


INDIRECT SUGGESTION 


Indirect suggestion operates unrecognized by the subject, because its 
appeal is made within the subject’s field of habitual reactions. It has been 
aptly described as slantwise suggestion, and as representing a flank 
movement, rather than a frontal attack as in the case of direct suggestion.? 
The adult mind is frequently more likely to be influenced by this method 
than by any other, for the adult has a large number of well-organized 
habits, which afford the basic conditions for unconscious response. Direct 
suggestion on the other hand arouses attention and stimulates the adult to 
bring his store of experience to bear upon it in criticism. 

The typical child responds almost as readily to direct as to indirect 
suggestion, because he has a meager amount of organized experience by 
which to judge new stimuli. Not having much of his mental life organized 
into habit, he is more or less free to respond in any direction and to any 
stimuli that his native tendencies and the impulses of the moment dictate. 
This is why children are known for their suggestibility. } 

The distinction between direct and indirect suggestion is found first in 
the way in which the suggested idea secures entrance to the mind of the 
subject, whether it arouses the attention or not. This latter point is 
determined by a basic fact, namely, the appeal made within or without 
the field of one’s habits. If within, it may properly be called indirect; if 
without, direct. The response to direct suggestion usually requires at 
least a modicum of reasoned affirmation, and thus may cause a slight delay. 

The constructive uses of indirect suggestion are manifold. Indirect 
suggestion may be made to draw upon the developing reservoirs of habit 
in ways not yet suspected by most people. A few illustrations will be 
given and discussed here. 

“When I wish my young brother on the opposite side of the dining-room 
table to sit up straight,” says a young lady, “I straighten up suddenly my- 
self, without comment, without interrupting the conversation, and without 
even glancing at my brother, and he responds.” This case illustrates a 
far-reaching application of the principle of indirect suggestion in exerting 
a socially wholesome influence upon others. By setting examples it is pos- 

*E. A. Ross, Social Psychology (Macmillan, 1908), Ch. II. 


SUGGESTION 127 


sible to secure responses from individuals which will serve as the first 
phases of new constructive habits, or developmental phases of habits al- 
ready partly formed. 

Many teachers and parents nag, scold, and order, “Don’t do this,” and 
“Don’t do that,” and are chagrined and even aggrieved because the child 
reacts contrarily. They forget that they have made no appeal to the child’s 
organized habits, and moreover, no appeal to the child to begin the process 
of constructive habit-formation. Their demand requires that the child’s 
natural and habitual activities be repressed, thus leaving him with energy 
dammed up, without outlet. He is in an agitated mental state, and is likely 
to assume a belligerent attitude.® 

Other teachers and parents put the emphasis on setting one constructive 
example after another, or suggesting activities of a constructive nature 
that would be performed by the child in company with another child or 
other children—thus utilizing the child’s group-made nature. Straight- 
forward examples of conduct and attitude are attractive to children and 
they commonly try to follow. Mere precept is often ineffective because it 
either centers attention in a negative way upon forbidden activities or else 
it unduly urges a line of behavior for which the individual has no habitual 
responses. 

Another example of indirect suggestion that relates to the problems of 
teaching may be analyzed: 


A rather large boy, John, was transferred from the seventh grade to the 
ungraded room, of which I had charge, because in the seventh grade “he 
would do absolutely nothing but arithmetic and drawing,” reported the regular 
teacher. In the ungraded room I allowed John to follow his own inclinations 
to a large extent; as a result, he did well in his two favorite subjects of 
arithmetic and drawing, but in no other work. Knowing from the unpleasant 
experiences of his former teachers that it would be useless to insist on his 
studying the despised geography or history lesson, I said nothing about these 
subjects, but mentioned only the two subjects which he enjoyed. One day, 
however, while discussing a geography lesson with a group of pupils, I asked 
John if he would draw on the blackboard a certain map for the use of the 
geography class that day, complimenting him in the presence of the class upon 
his ability to draw. Each day thereafter, I asked him to draw some assignment 
in the geography lesson, taking care that the assignments would require more 
and more reading in geography on his part. A similar method was pursued 
in history, with the result that at the close of the year John was doing cred- 
itable work in both geography and history—the subjects in which he had 
failed in the regular grade work.* 

“See the section on “repression” in Chapter II for a further explanation of this 
point. 

“From the unpublished notes of a “special” school teacher of Los Angeles, 


128 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





In this illustration, the teacher succeeded by making his appeal to the 
pupil’s habitual reactions. In utilizing the boy’s mirrored self, the teacher 
also followed a scientific procedure, and received effective assistance in 
solving the situation. Of course, the problem of teaching cannot always 
be handled in this way, fur there may be no related ground of habit. 
Furthermore, teaching requires the establishment of new habits as well as 
the extension of old ones. 

The press despatches stated that Princess Mary of England upon the 
announcement of her wedding in 1922 received 600 presents before the 
wedding from persons who had not been invited, but many of whom, it 
was indicated, hoped thereby to receive an invitation, It is reported that 
this use of indirect suggestion failed, as it deserved to fail, for it could 
hardly be considered socially legitimate. The main psychological reason 
for the failure undoubtedly lay in the fact that the receipt of pre-wedding 
gifts from strangers appealed to no background of habitual responses, and 
hence the procedure brought a response of wonderment, mere appreciation, 
or possibly of resentment, but not of sending out wedding invitations. 
Socially of course the force of conventional standards operated to defeat 
the aim of the social climbers. 

A librarian noticing that the young people were reading low grade 
novels, posted on the inside of the front and back covers of these books a 
statement to this effect: “Other books of this type are Here she 
gave the names of three or four works of fiction, being careful to mention 
books of a little higher grade than the one in which the notice appeared. 
In a short time it was found that the youthful patrons of the public 
library were reading a better grade of books. The librarian repeated the 
process, with the result that in a year’s time, the type of fiction-reading 
had markedly changed for the better. This case of indirect suggestion, as — 
is common, resolves itself into a matter of stimulating habitual responses, — 
and securing in this way by a little forethought, a constructive modifica- | 
tion of habitual nature. | 

A merchant, having too many slow-pay customers, offered prizes for 
the best essays on the subject : How to collect accounts. Considerable dis- — 
cussion developed on the subject of long-term credit. Since the merchant 
lived in a neighborhood of ordinarily honest and well-to-do people who had 
grown simply careless in their treatment of the neighborhood grocer, the - 
grocer’s appeal was effective, and he saved himself from bankruptcy. He 
had pricked into action the somewhat lax habits of paying one’s obligations. — 
Had he lived where many of his customers possessed no habits of ordinary — 
honesty his method would have produced no results; and had he been 





SUGGESTION 129 





located in a district of the chronically delinquent-wealthy, there would have 
been little result except that of creating animosity on the part of some fami- 
lies who had become habitually resentful of any implied criticism. 

In a given California school, prejudice had developed against a few 
Japanese and Chinese children who were in attendance. The teacher 
arranged a debate on the subject: Resolved that China has advanced fur- 
ther democratically in the last ten years than Japan has done. She ap- 
pointed three pupils on each side of the question, and one-half of the re- 
maining pupils to gather information for the affirmative debaters, and the 
other half to work for the negative debaters. All the pupils fell to studying 
about the peoples of China and Japan and the struggle in each of these 
countries to secure democracy. By the day of the debate, marked interest 
in and sympathy for both the Chinese and the Japanese had developed. As 
a result of this use of indirect suggestion, the teacher experienced no 
further trouble because of race prejudice. Her procedure had expanded 
the pupils’ sympathetic and habitually favorable responses to include the 
social situations of the Chinese and Japanese children, and illustrates one 
of the fundamental laws of both personal and group advance. 

A farmer persuaded all his neighbors to paint their barns during the 
same season, with the result that land values rose ten dollars an acre for 
all. Buyers unconsciously felt that the land in that district must be of 
superior grade or the farmers would not be so prosperous. 

A member of a Board of State Charities appealed to the superintendents 
of state institutions through indirect suggestion as follows: 


Often there would be something to correct and I would tell the superin- 
tendent not what he ought to do, but what some other man had done under 
similar circumstances. ... Then on my next visit, the superintendent would 
say, “You know what you told me about so and so. Well, I tried it and it 
worked first rate.” ° 


The superintendent came to believe that the plan was his own, and thus he 
supported it heartily. 

In a personal discussion one skilled in argumentation often begins by 
agreeing with his opponent. By so stimulating the opponent’s habitual 
responses, he secures a more or less expansive, unguarded mental activity 
on the part of the opponent and may be able to lead him step by step to 
endorse a new position. To arouse the spontaneity that springs from 
habitual reactions is far more effective than bluntly to challenge habit or 


* Alexander Johnson, Adventures in Social Welfare (Fort Wayne, Ind., 1923), 
P. 139 


130 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


unorganized mental activity, thus putting the individual in a defensive 
attitude. 

Another phase of indirect suggestion is illustrated by the soldiers who 
were to test their gas masks, and thought they smelled gas when there 
had been none. The explanation is found in the fact that the concentra- 
tion upon smelling for gas, and the high degree of expectation automatic- 
ally released the habit mechanisms for smelling gas. This expectation-re- 
leasing process operates daily. At times it is beyond the limits of conscious 
control. It produces many of the fears which harass temperamental per- 
sons. 

The ignorant are especially subject to indirect suggestion. The immi- 
grant or stranger is in this class. An immigrant of several years standing 
opened a banking business in a Pennsylvania town, but for a time he had 
little patronage from the incoming aliens of his race. He hit upon the 
plan of purchasing a large safe and putting it in the large front window of 
his store, and at once the money on deposit increased rapidly—not because 
he had proved himself an honest banker but for the reason that he 
had a reliable-appearing safe. He had released the habitual judg- 
ments of the people in his neighborhood that a safe meant safety for 
their earnings. 

Adolescents are continually resorting to indirect suggestion as a means 
of controlling their younger comrades. They use fear as well as many 
hollow rewards in order to get unpleasant tasks done. The “everlasting 
fielder” plan, is successful in getting balls “shagged”’ without loss of “turn 
at the bat” on the part of the regular players. Mark Twain revealed count- 
less uses of indirect suggestion on the part of leaders among boys. For 
example, Tom Sawyer has the unpleasant, irksome work of whitewashing 
a fence. When a boy friend passes, Tom boasts of his ability to white- 
wash, but deliberately daubs the fence. The sight causes the newcomer to 
challenge Tom, seize the brush and exhibit his own skill. By this process 
the fence is whitewashed—with Tom looking on all the while. Tom had 
“elevated fence painting to the rank of the most popular sport in the home 
town,” and on a day when fishing and swimming had been scheduled. Tom 
had aroused the first onlooker’s habitual reactions to paint, and the onlooker 
having turned painter was kept at the work after it became onerous be- 
cause the presence and remarks of new onlookers stimulated his established 
estimate of himself. 

Children sometimes resort to indirect suggestion as a means of influenc- 
ing their elders. While this conduct is usually not commendable, it in an 


SUGGESTION 131 


unpremeditated form amounts to harmless cleverness. When “George” 
was visiting at his aunt’s the latter removed a pan of hot cookies from the 
oven. George looked wistfully at the cookies and said: ““My mother told 
me not to ask for anything.” The look and remark, both perhaps innocent 
in character, stimulated the habit of giving, and before she realized what 
she was doing, the aunt held out the baking pan and was urging the boy 
to help himself. 

Indirect suggestion may be used in bad as well as good ways. In public 
life the application of indirect suggestion is especially important, for it 
affects multitudes. Politicians usually succumb to the temptation to use 
indirect suggestion, because it can be called into operation for illegitimate 
‘purposes without arousing serious unfavorable reactions against its manip- 
ulators. The public is always subject to questionable indirect suggestions 
that are resorted to by demagogues. In a certain city the people were 
asked to vote bonds in order to construct an aqueduct. For some time 
before the election day there was much said in the newspapers about the 
shortage of water supply for the city and rigid restrictions concerning the 
use of the water were put into force. The bonds were voted, but after 
the election the rigid water regulations were rescinded, even though the 
additional water supply would not be available for years. This method 
_ of indirect suggestion had aroused the famine-fear reactions (largely 
habitual) of the people, and in supposed self-defense they voted the 
additional water supply. 

Indirect suggestion may be employed for a variety of worthy public 
aims. When Roosevelt was police commissioner in New York City, he 
received an application for police protection from a rabid anti-Jewish 
speaker who was invading the Jewish section of the city. The request 
was granted, but it did not take the anti-Jewish demagogue long to appre- 
ciate the indirect suggestion when he found that he was protected by a 
detail of twenty-five Jewish policemen. To denounce Jews who had been 
assembled to protect him and who were the official representatives of the 
government outraged his fair-play habits, and respect-for-government 
habits ; and his primary purpose in speaking was defeated. 

Additional light is thrown on the nature of indirect suggestion by the 
instance of the Armenian immigrant from Turkey whose experiences of 
being persecuted had developed fear reactions, and in addition a habit of 
giving policemen “graft” money for protection. 'When the immigrant 
reached the United States and started down a city street, he met a police- 
man and was at once completely terrified, offering him a dollar, saying: 


132 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





“Sir, one dollar, that is all,” and meaning that he had but one dollar to 
give as a bribe if not taken to jail. Both fear and the bribery habits 
had been stimulated into action. 

Indirect suggestion may function by stimulating imaginative activity. 
Thus office may clothe the office-holder with a worth he does not possess. 
In this way too, indirect suggestion may carry the poisoned darts of insin- 
uation. If in recommending an acquaintance for a position, I consery- 
atively and innocently state that the young man will do fairly well, the 
imagination of the employer immediately pictures several possible weak- 
nesses of the candidate rather than the one which I had in mind. By the 
use of the word “fairly,” I have started up the employer’s imagination and 
he forms a picture of the candidate which does him gross injustice. Con- 
sequently, if I use any qualifying term I had better explain or the candi- 
date’s chances will be wrecked. 

Flattery is a shrewd form of indirect suggestion. It operates to inflate 
the subject’s estimate of himself, but more fundamentally it is an over- 
powering stimulus to all the mechanisms that have been organized in a 
person’s life around his concept of self. All the energies are released 
along habit lines and the person is less critical than usual. 

Slogans, campaign shibboleths, newspapers and billboard advertssements 
are replete with indirect suggestion. The advertisements of the appealing 
youth with rosy cheeks, holding a cigarette implies that the cigarette has 
given the youth his attractiveness. The onlooker’s responsiveness to the 
youth includes a favorable reaction to the cigarette and the particular brand 
that is advertised, unless the onlooker has strong convictions to the con- 
trary. The full dinner pail slogan carries an appeal regarding the imme- 
diate future, and promptly stimulates pleasurable responses when this 
immediate future is pictured. It makes no suggestion regarding higher 
costs of living that may cut down the buying power of the dollar. It 
suggests that the party which advertises the full dinner pail has a mo- 
nopoly on the methods of providing it. The full dinner pail and the name 
of the party are shown together, and the agreeable responses produced by 
the former are thereby associated with the latter, and after repetition the 
name of the political party alone produces agreeable responses and secures 
votes. The advertisement of the luscious strawberry cake and the name 
of a baking powder likewise sets up pleasurable responses which later are 
aroused by the name of the baking powder alone. The implications of 
“Ivory Soap” and of “Hotpoint” electrical appliances are self-evident, 
illustrating the rdle that the conditioned response plays in indirect 
suggestion, 


SUGGESTION 133 


COUNTER SUGGESTION 


There are other forms of suggestion known as immediate, mediate, and 
counter suggestion (the names given them by Boris Sidis) but the first 
two are forms of imitation rather than of suggestion.® They explain how 
persons respond to stimuli or suggestion. In all three cases the suggestion 
may be given in exactly the same way ; the differences are not in the sugges- 
tions but rather in the responses. In the first two the responses are imita- 
tive and will be considered in the next chapter under the titles of immediate 
and mediate imitation. 

Some persons and many children respond in an opposite way to that 
which is suggested. In these cases the person’s impulses and habits have 
become more or less closely organized in the form of an ego, and the 
first reaction is one of defense against change and hence against any 
form of an impinging environment. Moreover, the habit has been formed 
of reacting against any direct suggestion. The persons representing 
chronic counter suggestion either have inherited well organized (relatively ) 
sets of impulses, or have had to shift for themselves. As children they 
may have had no brothers or sisters, or no brothers or sisters somewhat 
- near them in age; or they have played with children much younger than 
themselves whom they learned to dominate. At any rate they probably did 
not play regularly where the rule of give-and-take was enforced by 
superiors or equals.® 


AUTO-SUGGESTION 


Auto-suggestion is indirectly a phase of interstimulation. Fear may be 
suggested by a friend, and later be imagined as real. Sickness is sometimes 
to be explained by imagined ills that have been suggested to one from 
the passing comments of others. Patent medicine advertisements usually 
ask if the reader does not have a headache or a backache and then pro- 
nounce these aches symptoms of this or that dread disease. Many per- 
sons read these advertisements and auto-suggestion does the rest. Many 
worries originate in environmental factors which are magnified by auto- 
suggestion. Pessimism and optimism also are often partially due to auto- 
suggestion. 

In a sense all auto-suggestion originates in the stimuli from the social 


* Boris Sidis, The Psychology of Suggestion (Appleton, 1911), p. 23 ff. 

*A graphic presentation of direct and indirect suggestion and immediate, mediate 
and counter suggestion according to Dr. Sidis in terms of the sensori-motor arc is 
given in his Psychology of Suggestion, p. 43. 


134 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





environment. These are thought about or absorbed unconsciously until 
they become a part of a person’s nature. What a person “suggests to 
himself” frequently has had its origin in social stimuli. In this way all 
auto-suggestion is a transformed type of indirect suggestion. Couéism 
involves the use of suggestions which the subject allows his organism un- 
attentively to put into operation as far as it will. In most cases it does not 
get at and remove causes. 


SOCIAL SUGGESTION 


Social suggestion is that coming not from an individual but from the 
group. Its origin frequently is in “crowd emotion,” “mob excitement,” 
and “war spirit.” At a football game, persons of dignity fall under the 
influence of an excited crowd and yell wildly. In a heated political debate 
otherwise cool individuals give way to the crowd spirit and “lose their 
heads.” 


SUGGESTIBILITY 


The degree to which an individual responds to suggestion is called his 
suggestibility. His likelihood of response varies. This suggestibility dif- 
fers among social groups of individuals. Some of the more important laws 
of suggestibility explain in new ways the nature of suggestion. Stimulat- 
ing discussions of suggestibility have been given by E. A. Ross? from the 
sociological viewpoint, and by William McDougall *® from a psychological 
approach, without either being complete in itself. Suggestibility, according 
to R. H. Gault,® is “that condition of the organism in which one or another 
determining tendency or disposition may express itself with relative free- 
dom.” This definition makes suggestibility a strong inherited quality; it is 
excellent as far as it goes, but overlooks the role of important factors such 
as knowledge, fatigue conditions, prestige of the source of suggestions, 
crowd conditions. In view of the pioneering work of Ross, McDougall, 
Sidis and of current contributions the laws of suggestibility may be stated 
as follows: 

1. The more social the members of a species, the greater the suggesti- 
bility. Animals which live in flocks or herds are more suggestible than 
those which forage alone—compare the suggestibility of sheep with that 
of the tiger. Since man has developed highly gregarious habits, his sug- 


Social Psychology, Ch. VII. 
An Introduction to Social Psychology (Luce, 1914), Ch. IV. 
* Social Psychology (Holt, 1923), p. 127. 


SUGGESTION 135 


gestibility is relatively very pronounced. Individuals which live in the 
presence of others almost all the time, habitually respond to a great variety 
of stimuli from their associates and are thus very suggestible. 

2. People who live in warm climates find life more easy than those in 
frigid regions. Their activities are less organized about the ego; they are 
more responsive, and their suggestibility is greater. They possess more 
response habits than Arctic people. Because life conditions are easier the 
birth-rate is higher, and as population increases, the possibilities of form- 
ing associative habits are greater. Thus, suggestibility is apt to be high. 
Moreover, a colder habitat favors the formation of thought habits as dis- 
tinguished from the tendency to form impulse habits among subtropical 
peoples. 

3. Isolated rural people are less suggestible than crowded urbanites. 
They develop few habits of association and are thus less responsive. They 
must solve problems with less aid, and develop a proverbial individualism 
or sets of habits for doing things in established ways. They have fewer 
stimuli to change their habits than do city people. 

4. The more impulsive are the more suggestible. They act more quickly 
and deliberate less. He who bides his time is commonly more calculating 
than suggestible. Some individuals are born with neuro-muscular mech- 
anisms that operate faster than those of other persons. Impulses, as such, 
seem to travel from sense organ to terminal muscle or gland faster; and 
hence impulses when organized into habits continue to act quicker in the 
case of some persons than of others. A quicker suggestibility thereby 
occurs. 

Again, some impulsive persons have great difficulty in developing habits. 
They are impulse slaves as compared with others who easily become habit 
frozen. The native activities of some persons become organized in estab- 
lished ways with great difficulty ; such individuals remain highly suggest- 
ible. 

The emotional and sentimental are more suggestible than the rational. 
They respond with less thought. Because of their quicker reaction time 
they are not able to profit by the time element which may check suggestibil- 
ity by giving a chance for reflection. 

5. The nervous person is more suggestible than the normal. Nervous- 
hess is due to an abnormally low degree of neurological control; under such 
conditions the mind functions fitfully. Deliberation is handicapped and 
habitual reactions are subject to disintegration. Suggestibility is high and 
capricious. Even habits are not coordinated and under control, and 
hence suggestibility manifests itself chiefly in impulsive reactions. 


136 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





6. Suggestibility varies with sex. The authorities are generally agreed 
that men are less suggestible than women, but the authorities on the subject 
are men and may be biased. According to the available data, women as a 
class have not had as wide a range of experiences as men, and hence have 
not developed as many sets of habit mechanisms. A large percentage of 
their native impulses are unorganized but responsive to a range of sug- 
gestions. Their experiences being more limited, women are not able to 
bring as many controls to oppose suggestions as are men. On the other 
hand, in times of financial craze men go wild in investing even the hard- 
earned savings of themselves and their wives. Who is more suggestible 
than men in the minutes when millions are being made or lost in the stock 
market? In such cases the wife is often the cooler-headed. Men suc- 
cumb to the appeal of the gaming-table, to the hunting impulses, but how 
many wage-earning women gamble their money away on pay-night? 

7. Suggestibility varies with age—the young as a rule being the more 
suggestible. The child and adolescent lack organized habits and knowl- 
edge with which to face suggestions. They are softer wax than persons of 
experience, travel, and organized information upon many subjects. Being ~ 
more impulsive they respond to a greater range of suggestions. 

8. Suggestibility depends on degree of fatigue. The fatigue toxins 
which circulate through the system dull the brain centers and lessen the 
ability to make rational judgments. The habit mechanisms also function — 
less accurately. In consequence suggestibility increases. 

g. Suggestibility varies with the degree and organization of knowledge. 
He who has a large fund of organized experiences and facts drawn from 
all phases of a given field, will not be irrationally suggestible in that matter, 
although he may be very suggestible in other matters upon which he is not 
thoroughly informed. In the field of organized experience, his reactions 
to suggestions will be in the direction of his habitual estimates, although © 
these may carry him astray. . 

10. Suggestibility varies with the prestige of the sources of suggestion. 
The average person is very suggestible in the presence of a leading author- 
ity or a heroic leader. Unfortunately, by many, a person with prestige is 
accepted as an authority on a large number of subjects outside his field 
of deserved prestige. What the “mayor” or the “bishop” says on subjects 
far removed from the field of politics and religion is accepted without ques- _ 
tion by victims of prestige suggestion. | 

II. Suggestibility varies with the degree of crowd or group excitement | 
and emotion. In a large crowd it is natural for an average individual to | 
feel insignificant and to act with the mass rather than throw himself 





SUGGESTION 137 


against it. In fact, reflective activity may be reduced to a minimum, be- 
cause all of a person’s energies are being drained off along impulsive and 
habitual lines. The crowd, as we shall see later, is primitive and impulsive 
in its actions and stimulates the individual’s impulsive activities. Group 
excitement and emotion may thus sway all but the most habitually 
critical observers. 

12. Suggestibility varies with reflectiveness. If a person has developed 
the habit of reflective criticism, and habitually subjects every proposal 
to a scrutiny of all its phases together with their probable outcomes and 
attendant obstacles, his degree of suggestibility will test low. 

13. If to habitual criticism and organized experience and knowledge 
along many lines a person adds strong activity habits and codrdinates 
these three traits, he is trebly guarded against irrational suggestibility. 
Organized knowledge plus habits of criticism may result in a wishy- 
washy attitude unless supported by habits of decisive action. Cooperation 
of these three factors raises one’s threshold high enough to shut out 
effectively irrational suggestions. 

All progressives are suggestible. The non-suggestible person is usually 
habit-bound, static, and stubborn. If all suggestions are given a fair 
hearing, examined coolly and thoroughly, and rejected if found of 
dubious character, or accepted and spread if meritorious, the most 
rational attitude possible will have been taken toward them. 

In conclusion it may be said that suggestion is a powerful agent of 
social construction or demolition. A nation can use it to build itself into 
an aristocratic or a democratic society. Through its educational system 
a group can use suggestion to indoctrinate little children with almost any 
set of beliefs that is desired. The power of advertisers or demagogues 
is puny in comparison with that of the educators because in children 
suggestibility is at flood tide. 


PRINCIPLES 


1. Suggestion is (a) the process of giving out personal stimuli; (b) it 
is the first part of the process of which imitation is the second and 
last; and (c) it is an initial phase of communication. 

2. Suggestion is possible because of the existence of stimulus-response 
mechanisms. 

3. The results of suggestion are conditioned by habit. 

4. Direct suggestion uses the command or request; indirect suggestion 

a flankwise approach. 


138 


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Am PWN 


(© em 


12. 


FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


. Suggestibility is the degree to which an individual responds promptly 


to objective stimuli. 


. Suggestion is the main dynamic of the educational process. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. What is suggestion ? 
. Distinguish between suggestion and imitation. 


How are suggestion and habit related? 


. Illustrate the differences between direct and indirect suggestion. 

. Illustrate a dangerous use of indirect suggestion. 

. In what way is flattery a form of indirect suggestion? 

. Cite a billboard advertisement using indirect suggestion. 

. In what way is auto-suggestion a form of indirect suggestion? 

. What is suggestibility ? 

. Why does suggestibility (a) vary with gregariousness; (b) with 


climate; (c) with degree of isolation; (d) with degree of impul- . 


siveness; (e) with sex; (f) with age; (g) with degree of fatigue; 
(h) with amount of knowledge; (i) with prestige of suggestion 
sources; (j) with degree of crowd conditions; and (k) with degree 
of reflectiveness ? 


PROBLEMS 


. ‘Why are you suggestible? 

. In what particulars are you most suggestible? Least suggestible? 

. Are women more suggestible than men? 

. What is muscle-reading ? 

. What is the relation of muscle-reading to so-called mind-reading? 

. Why does your throat ache “after listening to a speaker who forms his 


voice badly?” 


. Why is it safer “on meeting a formidable animal” face to face in the © 


jungles of Africa to stand than to run? 


. Is a person suggestible when asleep? 
. Is an underfed person more suggestible than a well-fed person? 
. What rule may a novice follow in driving a nail in order to avoid 


hitting his thumb? 


What is the suggestion in the politician’s slogan: ‘Let us pass pros- 


perity around”? 
What difference does it make whether clerks ask, “Shall we send the 


TRE fae he ae elie 


or "0 on 


Bs: 


14. 
15. 
16. 
y vi 
18. 
19. 
20. 


! er. 
22. 
23. 
24. 


AS 


26. 


SUGGESTION 139 


package?” or, “Shall we send the package, or will you take it with 
your” 

From the standpoint of the average person what is the difference in 
suggestion between the two signs: “Keep off the grass,” and “Why 
not keep on the sidewalk ?” 

What suggestion does “a brass-trimmed, marble-faced, mahogany-up- 
holstered bank” make to an immigrant from South Europe? 

What suggestion does a $6,000 limousine make to the average honest 
but poor man? 

What suggestion is made by a dentist’s sign which shows a large tooth 
deeply embedded in the gums? 

What do the extravagant dresses of the wife or daughter of a lawyer 
suggest to the client? 

Why can one easily walk a narrow plank that lies on the ground, but 
not one which extends across a deep chasm? 

What is the danger in talks “on sex hygiene before the segregated 
pupils of the public schools”? 

How do you account for the moral influence of certain teachers, and 
the lack of it in others who are equally well-intentioned? 

How do you explain “the deadliness of the innuendo”? 

Why is faint praise “more damaging than downright depreciation” ? 

Explain the suggestion in the statement: He protests too much. 

Why is it usually true that the best way to get the offer of a coveted 
position is not to seem too anxious for it? 

What is (a) the direct suggestion and (b) the indirect suggestion in 
a motion picture showing a crime being committed with the criminal 
ultimately being caught? 

Compare from the standpoint of suggestion (a) a spacious sales room 
for a bargain sale, (b) a small sales room of bargains, and (c) a 
narrow runway leading from the elevator to a good-sized room of 


bargains. 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Baldwin, J. M., Mental Development (Macmillan, 1898), Chs. VI, IX, 


XII. 


Binet, Alfred, La suggestibilité (Paris, 1900). 
“ooley, C. H., Human Nature and the Social Order (Scribners, 1902), 


oh, IT 


140 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


Ellwood, C. A., An Introduction to Social Psychology (Appleton, 1917), 


Chives 
Ewer, B. C., Applied Psychology (Macmillan, 1923), Ch. IV. 
Gardner, C. S., Psychology and Preaching (Macmillan, 1918), Ch. X. 
Gowin, E. B., The Executive and His Control of Men (Macmillan, 1915), 
Ch. XII. 
Gumplowicz, L., “La suggestion sociale,” Rivista ital di sociol., he 


545-55: 

Howard, G. E., Social Psychology (syllabus, Univ. of Nebraska, 1910), 
Chall. 

Keatinge, M. W., Suggestions in Education (London, 1911). 

McDougall, Willian An Introduction to Soctal Psychology (Luce, 1914), 


pp. 96-107. 
Munsterberg, Hugo, On the Witness Stand (Doubleday, Page: r6Boy. 


PP. 175-199. 
Platt, Charles, The Psychology of Social Life (Dodd, Mead: 1922), Ch. 
Vig 
Ross, Edward A., Social Psychology (Macmillan, 1908), Ch. II. 
Social Control (Macmillan, 1910), Chs. XII, XIV, XV. 
Schmidkunz, H., Psychologie der Suggestion (Stuttgart, 1892). 
Sidis, B., The Psychology of Suggestion (Appleton, 1911). 





oe 


CHAPTER XII 
IMITATION 


F suggestion is an initiating factor and suggestibility is sensitiveness 

to the new, then the actual response to suggestion is some form of 
imitation or contra-imitation. Imitation is the response unconscious or 
conscious to suggestion; it is the motor result of the impulse phase of 
suggestion. Since Tarde, a magistrate dealing with criminal cases, struck 
first by the recurrence of anti-social conduct and then, by that of normal 
conduct, was led to make his picturesque and extensive study of the laws 
of imitation,’ the subject has had a wide vogue. 

Many types of activities are considered imitative which upon examina- 
tion prove to be forms of communication. The boy who clenches his 
fist when he meets the clenched fist of another boy is not imitating the 
other, but is making an appropriate protective response. 


UNCONSCIOUS IMITATION 


Unconscious imitation is usually preceded by indirect suggestion, while 
conscious imitation is ordinarily induced by direct suggestion. In the case 
of unconscious imitation the indirect suggestion subconsciously releases an 
habitual or impulsive mechanism and the individual responds automatically. 
A person who responds automatically rather than rationally to suggestions 
illustrates unconscious imitation. The process is subconscious. It is 
not enough that the overt response resemble the overt stimulus. The 
process by which the response is made must be similar to the process 
by which the stimulus operates. A companion and I are walking together, 
and while we are engaged in earnest conversation, he gradually begins 
to walk faster. I unconsciously imitate my companion, but what has 
happened psychologically? The faster walking of my friend has stimu- 
lated me to walk faster. In other words, the process called unconscious 
imitation in this instance has not changed the nature of an activity sub- 
consciously carried on except to heighten it. 

While a friend and I are visiting, he may take an orange from a plate 
on a nearby table and begin to eat it. Presently, without being aware 
of his act, I may do likewise. In this illustration, the friend’s reaching 


*The Laws of Imitation, trans. by Parsons (Holt, 1903). 
I4I 


142 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


et ORNS tac Se ee 
for and eating an orange has released my orange-eating habit. We both 
have orange-eating habit-mechanisms, and the setting into operation of 
one of these has unconsciously (to me) set the other into motion. 

It has long been noted that actions are more easily imitated than ideas, 
and that they are especially’subject to unconscious imitation. When one’s 
attention is centered on another’s conversation, one is prone in replying 
to copy unconsciously his gestures and mannerisms. Gestures are so sub- 
ject to unconscious imitation that they spread rapidly, and may even 
become nationally common. The child copies irrationally the striking 
spectacular actions of others; in matters of rhythm he almost inevitably 
responds. Action, being more visible than ideas, is more apt to stimulate 
sensory reactions and to set off similar human mechanisms. 

The motion picture that portrays stealing, burglary, sex coarseness, has 
a harmful effect upon the adolescent through the imitation, partly con- 
scious but chiefly unconscious, which is engendered. “Haven't you 
noticed that a crime that is pictured in the movies is usually punished 


before the film is ended?” a young delinquent was asked who attributed . 


his downfall to the motion picture. “Oh! yes,” he replied, “but after I 
get the idea of how to commit a daring act (from the film) I always am 
willing to take a chance that I won’t get caught.” In other words, the 


theft act or the sex act serve as a stimulus to release the boy’s general — 


native impulses to activity or his more specialized impulsive and habitual 
tendencies; this urge is more powerful than the thought of being appre- 
hended later. 

It is remarkable how unconscious imitation may break down established 
habits. The experience of a lady of training, culture, and refinement is 
a case in point. “When that stuttering song, ‘K-K-Katie’ first came out, 


my little niece delighted to sing it, and much to my chagrin. I despised — 


and abhorred it. But a few weeks later, much to my own amazement 
and her satisfaction, my niece caught me singing it as I set the table for 
dinner.” The song by its rhythm had set up a mechanism among the un+ 
organized rhythmic impulses of the woman’s nature, and the repeated 
hearing of the song had released subconsciously this incipient mechanism 
so often that when the lady was engrossed in thought and fell into her 
regular habit of singing while at work, the stimulus to sing released the 
“K-K-Katie’ mechanism. 


CONSCIOUS IMITATION 


Conscious imitation, is a somewhat different process. Suppose that 
when a friend and I are walking together, he suddenly remembers another 





| 





IMITATION 143 


engagement and declares that he must hasten along, and begins promptly 
to walk fast, what will be the reaction upon me? Unless very deeply 
engaged in specific thought, I will think of my own work, and excusing 
myself, may turn back. If my work is located in the direction that my 
companion is going I will decide to hurry along with him—imitating him 
shall we say only in a small degree? I may have nothing to do at 
the particular time and receiving no other strong stimulus, I may decide 
to accept the pace of my friend, just to keep him company. Is this con- 
scious imitation? Not fully so. If the friend suddenly declares that 
he must hurry to buy a hat before the store closes, and I decide that I 
too need a new hat, then conscious imitation has taken place. In other 


words before an act may truly be called imitative, its processes must be 


accounted for in many, if not all, important particulars. Back of both 
conscious and unconscious imitation there are many similar impulses and 
habit mechanisms, which after all may be viewed as the most important 
essentials in imitative phenomena. 

The twenty months old baby who after watching a group of carpenters 
smoking cigarettes, put a box of crayolas into his coverall pockets, and 
“smoked” crayolas, imitating every move and gesture of the men, prob- 
ably had no “cigarette” meaning for his acts. His impulsive activity and 
his incipient habits of holding and manipulating objects in his hands and 
mouth were released (and further organized) by accidentally having his 
attention centered upon the (to him) novel actions of the carpenters. 

Another element is to be noted in the incident of the twelve-year old 
boy who wore an overseas cap and who as a result caused the neighbor- 
hood to swarm the next day with overseas caps—made of wrapping paper, 
newspapers, and other materials. In this instance social reflection was a 
prominent factor.2 The boy with an overseas cap had prestige, and after 
the socially reflecting process had multiplied overseas caps, the boy 
without one felt himself “out of it.” Imitation in other words rarely 
operates alone, but generally in conjunction with other psycho-social 
factors. 

_ The cash register is invented and after it has demonstrated its useful- 
ness it is universally adopted by large business houses. “Babbitt” is 
advertised widely; individuals ask each other “Have you read Babbitt ?” 
and the impulse to read it spreads over the country—resulting in a tre- 
mendous sale. Here a common reading habit deeply fixed, is easily ap- 
pealed to by favorable comment on a given book, and again the socially 
reflected image acts as a powerful drive. No one dares confess that 
*See Chapter VI. 


144 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


SES ev NT SUID MTINTLEC St {1 00 Gol Man ORM oss beset eco ciew recyou liso a CLaMioeet cS CSET SO 
he is not acquainted with what all his coterie are talking about. Finstein’s 
theory of relativity is announced, and at once newspaper writers and 
members of women’s clubs mention it as if they fully understood it. 
The habit of discussion about a current topic is probably eclipsed in 
this instance by socially reflected images, while imitation, as such, does 
not occupy a prominent place. 


IMMEDIATE IMITATION 


Boris Sidis in discussing immediate and mediate suggestion had in 
mind, not differences in stimuli or suggestions, but in motor responses.* 
Immediate and mediate imitation, therefore, are more accurate terms. 
Dr. Sidis and others have also overlooked the réle played by habit in imita- 
tion. If a suggestion stimulates no habit, imitation is not apt to occur, but 
rather wonder or indifference, or even an antagonistic reaction—points 
that are evident in immediate, mediate, and counter suggestion. 


If a suggestion is responded to promptly, the result is immediate . 
imitation. Whether direct or indirect the stimulus arouses reactions 


immediately in line with the direct meaning of the stimulus. The captain 


gives the order, “March,” and the company moves forward; or the child — 
says, “I’m thirsty,” and the mother proceeds to get a glass of water. In ~ 


other words, the stimulus has released habits. In a theatre audience 
some one at the sight of smoke issuing from behind the curtain cries, 
“Fire,” and at once there is a panic. The suggestion acts immediately 
and with startling and often destructive results, for the stimulus has 
released inherited mechanisms which act with speed and force. 


MEDIATE IMITATION 


If time elapses and modifications occur in the responses, mediate 
imitation has taken place. The salesman shows you a new style of hat 


and asserts that it is becoming to you. You remonstrate, but perhaps 
the next day you return and purchase the innovation, or a modification 
of it. The stimulus in these instances has been made to a general set 
of habitual responses, namely to purchasing a hat, and more, to pur- 


vom 


ee te 


chasing a hat which is attractive and becoming, but the stimulus has_ 
also aroused a new set of activities, namely, those of selecting a type of 
hat which you have never worn. A conflict arises, mental obstacles 


*The Psychology of Suggestion (Appleton, 1911), p. 23 ff. 


) 
) 


| 
| 
| 


IMITATION 145 


occur, there is a concentration of attention, and as a result time elapses 
and a slight modification of habit takes place. 


THE LAW OF IMITATION 


Conscious imitation operates more or less directly in proportion to the 
imputed superiority and more or less inversely in proportion to the social 
distance of the action or idea constituting a stimulus. Some of the 
elements in this law of conscious imitation have been described at length 
by Gabriel Tarde* and Edward A. Ross.° Tarde, however, declared 
that the superior are imitated by the inferior, but did not distinguish 
between the superior and the alleged superior. It is those who are 
thought to be superior who are widely imitated, while the truly great 
are often unheeded and die neglected. Imputed rather than real superior- 
ity is often the magic factor, for natural prestige is not usually distin- 
guished from acquired prestige. Although the former is based on 
personal worth and achievement and the latter upon extraneous factors, 
such as rank, fortune, or office, the latter fascinates the populace more 
often than the former. Even a person who might be expected to imitate 


‘rationally is frequently blinded by a meteoric glare. 


Many of the hereditarily rich insist that to inherit vast wealth is the 
greatest thing in the world, and regard working for a living, even to 
support a family, as disgraceful. Their theory is that “lifelong loafing 
is more worthy of respect than lifelong industry, or that persons who 
work are “miserable boobs.” As E. A. Ross has pointed out the nine- 
tenths in any society who work have allowed the one-tenth who are 
born rich to persuade them that they are despicable because they work. 
An undemocratic idea which has been promulgated by an alleged superior 
class has been accepted by the really superior classes. 

There are other phases of the law of conscious imitation which need 
to be differentiated. The greater the superiority, real or imputed, the 
greater the power to produce imitation. Lesser lights no matter how 
prominent are outshone in imitative influence by the stars of first mag- 
nitude. 

A third factor of importance is the social distance between the stim- 
ulus and response. The greater the mental and social proximity, the 


“Laws of Imitation (Holt, 1903), pp. 213 ff. 
* Social Psychology (Macmillan, 1908), Ch. IX. 


146 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





greater the imitation that may be expected to ensue. Lawyers imitate 
eminent jurists, but may scarcely notice or even scorn great poets. We 
imitate most largely within our own fields of social contact. A superior 
person in my own profession or on my own plane of living influences me 
more imitatively than one*in some widely different occupation or on a 
markedly different plane of living, for the stimuli which emanate from 
his larger mental size and because of his closer proximity naturally affect 
me more. The chief exception to this corollary of conscious imitation 
is that too close proximity may produce familiarity, which breeds con- 
tempt and non-imitation. 

A fourth element of the law of imitation is that imitative activity 
varies according to the habitual and impulsive nature of the subject. 
Since my native and acquired dispositions are organized in certain 
directions, my imitative responses are greater in those directions than 
in others. Clever innovations in teaching are more apt to be adopted 
by me than clever innovations in bootlegging. I am apt to imitate a 
famous educator, while a well known film actor will release or arouse 
no imitative responses whatsoever, for the reason that I have teaching 
habits which respond to new teaching suggestions, but no motion picture 
acting habits. 

There are cases, however, in connection particularly with unconscious 
imitation, where the inferior are imitated by the superior, for example, 
the softening of the consonants and opening of the vowels by Southern 
white people in unconscious imitation of the Negro.® <A person of 
culture may slip into slang, or take up with a cheap fad. The worthy 
congressman may resort to a transparent trick of the professional cam- 
paigner, while a clergyman may turn to the methods of a real estate 
promoter. In other words, by appealing to the lower levels of human 
nature, a leader may get support quickly for worthy causes. Support 
so gained, however, is apt to be superficial and transient. 

The fundamental law, however, is that the higher in prestige is 
imitated by the lower. The parent is imitated by the child; the bishop, 
by the young preacher ; the scientist, by the laboratory assistant. Society 
women are the idols of débutantes, who in turn dazzle the ‘‘sub-debs.” 
Charlie Chaplin has a clientele of ambitious and clownish imitators. City 
people are copied by many rural folk. The college upperclassmen set 
the pace for the freshmen and fraternity men for the neophytes. 
“Courtesy comes from the court”, and in the main there is “a descent 
of example.” 


°E. A. Ross, Social Psychology, p. 150. 


IMITATION 147 





OTHER PHASES OF IMITATION 


No two persons follow copy exactly because of the personal equation of 
the imitator. No two have had exactly the same social experiences 
and therefore have developed the same habit mechanisms. Hence, 
responses cannot be just the same. Witness the difficulty of the child 
in learning to write well—how hard it is for him to copy good hand- 
writing. “Platonism produced no other Plato; Christianity yields no 
Biner jesus or Paul.” 7 

Viewed socially and from the standpoint of results imitation secures 
the continuance of established ways of doing, and also, the spread of 
new methods. Unknown inventors produced the Arabic numerals, which 
through imitation have been commonly adopted throughout Occidental 
civilization, and preserved through the centuries. In 1876, Alexander 
Bell invented the telephone, which through imitation has become almost 
universal in middle and upper class homes, and after being modified 
by further inventions appears in the form of radio telephony. Toynbee 
invented the social settlement which has been modified but preserved 
through imitation. Lincoln gave a new definition of democracy which 
has been quoted by millions. While imitation promotes utilization, it 
often carries customs and conventions far beyond their zone or period 
of usefulness. 

Imitation thus becomes a deadening social factor. It endows some 
procedures with so much momentum that ultimately they roll like Jugger- 
nauts over generations whose needs they do not meet. Through imitation 
they first become habitual, and then through education and imitation 
in the home, school, church, and elsewhere, they become customary. The 
child thus is born into an atmosphere which stifles rather than stimulates 
his critical ability, and imitation does the rest. 

Imitation assumes three leading forms of social expression which will 
be dealt with fully later. (1) Fashion imitation is competitive copying 
of the new and current. It manifests special forms, such as the craze 
and the fad. (2) Convention diffusion is non-competitive copying of 
the formal. (3) Custom diffusion is the copying of established and 
ancestral ideas and methods. 

_ When put to the test of service, every imitation falls into one of 
three classes—irrational, rational, and socio-rational. Many customs, but 
perhaps a smaller percentage of conventions and fashions can pass the 


| "W. E. Hocking, Human Nature and Its Re-making (Yale Univ. Press, 1918), 
Pp. 250, 





148 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


BOGS vee a ta 00 oem cnc niet era 


test of serviceability. Upon careful scrutiny many so-called rational 
‘mitations are found to be useful only to a specific class of people, and 
by them considered rational. Outside these narrow limits they may be 
harmful, dangerous, or even destructive. What helps my corporation 
to earn larger dividends or my labor union to secure larger wages for me 
is likely to be considered rational by me. But if I acquire a broader 
point of view, then such imitation in part becomes irrational and anti- 
social. The test of socio-rational imitation is thus the highest conceivable ; 
it encompasses both personal and social welfare needs. 


PRUNCTEISES 


1. Imitation is the normal resultant of suggestion, and unconscious 
imitation is largely the product of indirect suggestion. 

2. The main law of imitation is that conscious imitation operates more 
or less directly in proportion to the supposed superiority and 
more or less inversely in proportion to the social distance of the 
suggested action or ideas. a 

3. The greater the superiority, real or alleged, the greater the power 
to produce imitation. 

4. Imitative activity also varies according to the habitual and impulsive 
nature of the subject. | 

s, Nothing is imitated exactly, for owing to differences in personal 
experiences one modifies while imitating. | 

6. Imitation is a socially conserving factor; it may be either fashionable, 
conventional, or customary; and irrational, rational, or socio- 
rational. | 


REVIEW QUESTIONS | 


. What is imitation? 
What is ‘“‘pseudo-imitation”’ ? 
Explain unconscious imitation. | 
What are the main differences between unconscious and conscious 
imitation ? 
5. Distinguish between immediate and mediate imitation. 
6. How may counter suggestion be overcome? 
7. What is the main law of imitation and its chief factors? 


PROBLEMS 


1. Give an original example of unconscious imitation. d 
2. Explain the statement that “everybody in a village walks on an 
average at the same rate of speed.” 


Pero 


IMITATION 149 


3. Explain the generalization that sentiment is “more electric than 
opinion.” 
4. Is an ideal of right living a better basis of religious clustering than 
a dogma? 
5. Should there be censorship of motion pictures? 
6. Why is there censorship of books in public libraries? 
7. Why is the moral responsibility of the novelist higher than that of 
other folks? 
8. Does art need censorship more than science? 
g. In what sense is imitation a vital factor in group progress? 
10. Who is the more dangerous member of a group, the disseminator 
of anti-social ideals or of anti-social opinions? 
11. Explain how it is that “the vortical suction of our population is 
stronger than ever before.” 
12. How do you explain psychologically that “nothing succeeds like 
success”? ; 
13. Explain from the standpoint of social psychology that “nothing 
succeeds like success.” 
14. Which is imitated the more easily: 
(1) Indolence or ambition? 
(2) A hopeful or a fearful attitude? 
(3) Yawning or sneezing? 
(4) Saving or spending? 
(5) Vices or virtues? 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Carver, T. N., editor, Sociology and Social Progress (Ginn, 1905), 
Ch. XXI. 

Davis, Jr., Michael M., Psychological Interpretations of Soctety (Colum- 
bia University Studies, 1909). 

Ellwood, C. A., Sociology in its Psychological Aspects (Appleton, 1912), 
Ch, XIII. 

Fry, E., “Imitation as a Factor in Human Progress,’ Contemp. Rev.; 
LV: 658-77. 

Gowin, E. B., The Executive and his Control of Men (Macmillan, 1915), 

i Ch. XI. 

‘Howard, G. E., Social Psychology (syllabus, University of Nebraska, 

| 1910) Ch. III. 

| McDougall, William, An Introduction to Social Psychology (Luce, 1914), 

| pp. 96-107. 


| 


150 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 

Pe Get NW Re ee SS eee 

Platt, Charles, The Psychology of Social Life (Dodd, Mead: 1922), 
Cri ay 

Tarde, Gabriel, The Laws of Imitation (Holt, 1903). 

Social Laws (Macmillan, 1907). 

Thorndike, E. L., The Original Nature of Man (Teachers College, Co- 
lumbia University: 1920), Ch. VIII. 





| 


of Imitation (Holt, 1903), pp. 244 ff. 





CHAP TE IRIOGDLE 
FASHION IMITATION 


HE fashion process is partly suggestion and partly imitation—sug- 

gestion in that new ideas or ways act as stimuli; and imitation in that 
they are responded to. It would be as accurate to speak of fashion 
suggestion as of fashion imitation; the latter term has gained currency, 
partly because it is the imitation phase of the process to which most 
people give major attention. Fashion occurs because new departures are 
developed or old ways are revived. 

When a new departure is originated or an old way is revived, it consti- 
tutes a stimulus or suggestion, but it would not get far were it not 
for the tendency to respond and to imitate. Where one person originates 
or revives the old, a thousand imitate; thus fashion gains momentum. 
The call to imitate a fashion is strong, for thereby a person not only 
makes what may be a natural response to a stimulus or suggestion, but 
establishes a unity and fellow-feeling with other persons whose social 
reflections he prizes highly.1 Conscious and unconscious imitation lead 
one often against his common sense to adopt the prevailing fashion in 
his field of interest. 

A fashion is a type of reaction common to a considerable number of 
people. It is often a recurring change in choices; a new way of acting 
or thinking which only a small percentage of the group has adopted. 
The field of new and recurring choices ranges all the way from breakfast 
foods or styles of dress to philosophic theories. If a new thing is out 
of line with the prevailing choices in its class, it fails of even a partial 
adoption; it is “laughed down.” 

If the new thing is meritorious, it will be widely imitated and become 
permanent. As soon as a new thing is extensively adopted it is no 


longer a fashion, for its acceptance has passed from the realm of attention 
_to that of habit. Whatever has merit is likely to be accepted, habit- 
_ ualized, and to contribute to progress. 


When a new thing or model is launched there is a competition to 


_adopt by those who readily forsake the old and take up with the new. 


*George Simmel, “Fashion,” International Quarterly, X: 133 ff.; cf. Tarde, Laws 


I5I 


152 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





If the thing becomes popular and defeats still newer choices, competition 
disappears ; it is habitualized and becomes a convention or custom. Be- 
cause of merit, prestige, or some adventitious reason, it becomes estab- 
lished and enjoys the authority of a custom. A convention refers 
particularly to the formal side of custom. The formal elements are apt 
to become detached from their social content, and on occasion may endure 
though void of any content whatsoever. Hence convention is more 
likely to represent futility and waste than is custom. | 

Fashion is objectively discernible as a current or uniformity of. be- 
havior. After a new choice has been launched purposely or accidentally, 
for mercenary reasons or through adventure, many rush to adopt it, 
and therefore taste supreme satisfaction in being of the discerning few, 
who are accorded special recognition.’ 


ELEMENTS OF FASHION CURRENTS 


The social psychology of fashion includes many significant elements.*> 
1. The impulses to differentiate one’s self from others gives a basis — 
for the fashion process. As soon as an individual develops a self-con-— 
sciousness as distinguished from a social consciousness, he seeks to 
maintain and even to deepen the differences between himself and others, — 
and particularly to set off himself and his coterie from other groups. — 
The impulses to give one’s self an individual stamp are measurably — 
gratified through responding to fashions. A new mode in the field of © 
one’s line of interests is promptly seized on. No one desires to be 
considered “average”; no one wishes to be “taken for” someone else; 
one even resents having his name mispronounced. | 

Fashion often gains for a person the credit of being individual. A 
shrewd observer has remarked that it is feathers which set off peacocks, © 
turkeys, and pheasants from one another; without the differentiating © 
plumage these birds would look alike. The adopter of a fashion imagines — 






himself raised to a higher social plane than that of the non-conformers. — 
Rarely does either adopter or observer distinguish between the intrin-— 
sically valuable fashion and the futile one. 

While fashion establishes camaraderie among its devotees, it creates 


jealousies between classes and individuals. Fashion separates and seg- 


regates. Fashion inequalities often set at nought the spirit of oe 


* Gabriel Tarde was the first Continental writer to set forth the nature of fashion, 
while E. A. Ross was the first American writer to offer a comprehensive social 
psychology of fashion (Social Psychology, Macmillan, 1908), Ch. VI. } 

Some of these factors have been presented by Ross, Social Psychology, Ch. VI. 


i 





FASHION IMITATION 153 


especially when social status is determined by one’s ability to waste money 
on non-essentials. 

On the other hand, by fashion imitation the lower classes assimilate 
themselves upwardly into the “higher” strata. Fashion imitation thus 
levels up and hence in a way democratizes. Even subject peoples rise 
through imitation, chiefly fashion imitation, toward the levels of their 
rulers. 

2. Human nature responds to the new. The desire for new ex- 
perience is apparently universal, although because of adverse traditions, 
Oriental peoples have not had much opportunity to display this trait. 
Among Western peoples the desire for new experience has had leeway. 
When given a chance human nature seeks the new; it soon tires of re- 
sponding to the same stimuli. New stimuli arouse fresh responses and 
thus fashions multiply. No matter how attractive a style of garb, it ceases 
sooner or later to stimulate one’s esthetic nature, and is discarded for 
another style which while not so beautiful, is ‘new’ and hence stimulates. 

In custom-ruled countries the novel gains a foothold with difficulty; 
but where fashion imitation has become well established the new takes 
on false glamor. Habits of responding to the new are established, 
and thus where fashion has wide recognition, there are some who respond 
to its appeals habitually, while others give it only scanty attention. Among 
many persons, however, the importance that is attached to the new 
increases in proportion to the development of fashion imitation itself. 
The fad, a special phase of fashion, thrives on the new and will be dis- 
cussed at length later in this chapter. 

3. The spectacular stimulates attention. Brilliancy, high «lights, flash 
and fire, oratorical “fireworks’—these are among the resources of fashion, 
for they arouse the attention of the whole multitude and impart prestige. 
When the ermine cloak or the hat with ostrich plumes passes down the 
aisle there is a craning of necks and a wagging of tongues. 

4. Excitement furthers fashion, for it paralyzes one’s critical powers 
and releases the native impulses to act irrationally. If @ furore can be 
created about the new, a large following can easily be secured. Among 
crowded urban peoples, already subject in a high degree to emotional 
response, excitement can easily be stirred up so that the novel makes 
an exaggerated appeal. 

5. Reputability aids a fashion. The rumor that the “best” people 
are adopting a new style or are about to do so, gives a fashion impetus. 
Many fashions live for a time entirely on the fact that people with 
prestige have adopted them. 


154 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


6. The individual frequently is sucked into the fashion vortex through 
the fear of social disapproval if he does not conform. Large numbers 
may remonstrate at first against a new fashion, but presently they are 
seen to adopt it—rather than be ridiculed for standing out. “One might 
as well be out of the world as out of fashion,” and hence fear of figuring 
as a dowdy brings one reluctantly into line with fool fashions. This is 
especially powerful in determining women’s responses to the rapidly 
changing styles of dress. 

7. The impulse to be free often promotes the cause of fashion. The 
cry of every new political party is “free yourselves from the bosses” 
of the old parties. Every new religious movement sounds the invitation: 
Throw off the yoke of dogma. The economic panacea flings out the 
banner: Be rid of the slavery of the industrial master class. This 
summons to freedom makes a fundamental appeal to certain impulses 
of human nature. So strong is the response that people rush to the 
support of this or that propaganda without carefully examining it. The 


seductive call to be free from old gyves causes people to overlook the 


yokes which may be hidden in the new. In a fashion epoch the impulse 
to be free easily becomes organized into habits, and individuals thereby 


: 


become chronically restless under any rule or procedure that is main-_ 
tained for some time. They acquire habits which hinder their accepting 


with fortitude even the necessary disciplines of life. 


8. The spirit of progress gives life to fashion. In fact fashion can 


flourish only in an environment which is favorable to new ideas and 


objects of attention. It is only in a dynamic society that fashion has 
full sway. 


Progressiveness is willingness to take chances with a new idea or 


method. It expects that some new methods will prove useless, but in 
order to. discover the worth-while, it will take broad risks. Immigration 
creates progressiveness, so that in new countries people will encourage 
fashion who in old countries gave no heed to it. 

A progressive social environment makes fashion possible, and in return 
fashion contributes now and then to progress. The meritorious idea 
or object runs the risk of being made a fashion, but by its merit it out- 


lives the short day normally accorded to fashion, and ultimately becomes 


fixed in the culture of a people. 

9g. The commercialized activities of designers of new fashions min- 
ister to the reign of fashion. Certain people make it a business to create 
new Styles that will appeal to fashion devotees and near-devotees. The 
designer of new fashions in clothes has achieved a professional status. 


: 
| 


FASHION IMITATION 15s 


He must understand human nature, the basic principles of social psychol- 
ogy, and be versed somewhat in art. His art, however, must usually 
be sacrificed to Mammon. Before one style has triumphed, a supplanter, 
perhaps less beautiful, is being designed. The designer is thus largely 
the slave of the promoter. 

10. Then there are the professional promoters and merchants, that 
is, the professionals who work in conjunction with the fashion designer 
and whose business it is to create wants, both false and true; and by 
almost any means impel people to buy the new fashions which the de- 
signers have planned and the manufacturers produced. Many advertise- 
ments of fashion shows create a wasteful, competitive consumption of 
goods. Fashion shows also stimulate many people to buy beyond their 
means and thus undermine thrift. Moreover, they tend to create un- 
satisfied and unsatisfiable wants in the minds of the less fortunate classes, 
and the poorer and lower middle classes are made restless, even frantic. 
It is for this reason that walking fashion plates spread the spirit of 
bolshevism in the land. A three-thousand dollar fur coat creates jealousy 
and social unrest wherever it is worn. 

The European women’s wear convention, held in August, 1922, illus- 
trates how women or bill-paying husbands are victimized by the sugges- 
tions thrust upon them by the profit-seeking fashion promoter. At the 
convention it was decreed that fashions were to change—in order to keep 
women buying. “Skirts were to be long; very long. Skirts were to be 
full; very full. Skirts were to be draped. Waists were to be fitted, to 
contrast with the billowing below.” ‘Three vehicles of dress publicity were 
used as a means of making the women surrender to the dictates of the 
promoters. (1) Shop windows and dress shows were exploited; flaring, 
flaunting flower-beds of skirts were displayed in windows and charming 
manikins went “mincing down the platform in pointed layers of purple 
and scarlet chiffon.” (2) The theatrical stage, costumed by the leading 
modistes, was well swept by trains and dragging sashes. (3) Home 
magazines, presumably devoted to women’s interests, fell into the net 
to conjure woman to buy what she did not need and in which she looked 
a guy and sometimes a fright. 

The professional promoter of fashion must succeed in creating an 
atmosphere of expectancy and of favorable anticipation among the people 
who can afford to buy and also among those in the class just below. For 
this reason, the professional uses of the serial and accumulative adver- 


_ tisement, as well as the fashion show, the manikin, the stage, and the 


*New Republic, Aug. 16, 1922. 


156 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





ladies’ magazines, and the unsuspecting victims begin a campaign of talk 
and of publicity in behalf of the new mode that is about to appear and 
thus help to “create a demand” for many things that are not needed. 
The game yields large revenue to a few business men. They become 
good guessers. They must make designs which will be accepted; with the 
development of prestige their power increases. 

There is a precarious element in bringing out new designs.®> Since 
designs must be made several months in advance of the time when needed, 
a considerable hazard is involved, for not all fashion devotees are of the 
dumb, driven cattle type. Moreover, most of them respect limits of 
decency. Their fickleness, too, sometimes makes them difficult to gauge. 
The human nature basis of fashion is something to which even the de- 
signer must conform. 


THE FASHION PROCESS 


The fashion process, which has been analyzed by E. A. Ross,® includes 


an atmosphere of progress, of imitation, of individualism, and of commer- . 


cialism. The designer well-versed in human nature sets the patterns. 
These are heralded even before they are manufactured, and promptly 
adopted by the ultra-devotees of fashion or pace-setters. The pace- 
setter leads off with a new style in a given field, and would-be pace- 
setters immediately follow, in order to share in his enhanced prestige. 


Then others copy, in order not to be frumps. There are also those who — 


belatedly and conservatively copy in order not to be viewed askance 


or pitied or set down as “back numbers.” A few never copy, and the — 


rest call them “hayseeds.” ‘They show the most independence of all, even 


more individuality than those who precipitately adopt a new style in — 


order to differentiate themselves from the group. 


As soon as the mode has perceptibly descended the social scale its © 


originators and promoters devise and introduce a new style. The pace- | 


setters snatch the “‘latest’’ fashion and dash off in the new direction. The © 


followers hotly pursue them, while the latter wildly cast about for a new 


fashion in order to sidestep the pursuers. To this process, which always — 


assumes insane and wasteful proportions, Ross has applied the term 


“social racing,” although perhaps “fashion racing” would be better. 


It is not difficult to perceive how the high cost of living is partly due | 


to fashion racing. Many articles are purchased, not because they are 


needed or are beautiful, but because neighbors or friends have made 


*Cf. Hazel Kyrk, A Theory of Consumption (Houghton Mifflin, 1923), p. II0; 


and P. T. Cherington, The Wool Industry (A. W. Shaw, 1916), pp. 7, 153 ff. 
*Soctal Psychology (Macmillan, 1908); pp. 99, 103. 


FASHION IMITATION 157 





these purchases already and the irrational standard prevails that one 
must “keep up with (or outdo) his neighbors.” The neighbors try to 
outdo us; and thus they and we are both guilty of speeding the steeple 
chase. Fashion racing with its process of endless counter stimulations 
unduly accentuates fashion. 


THE CRAZE 


Craze and fad are exhibitions of exaggerated fashion imitation. The 
craze arises out of and is characterized by excitement. Under a spell of 
excitement, many people will temporarily adopt almost any irrational 
scheme. If the necessary excitement can be created, the result in terms 
of imitation can be predicted with a fair degree of accuracy. It is note- 
worthy that the fields of finance and religion have been subject to crazes, 
especially since these realms are opposites, one being characterized by 
material and the other by spiritual aims. 

Financial speculation, and especially gambling, has been perhaps the 
main center of craze whirlpools. At this writing the morning newspaper 
on my desk contains several quarterpage advertisements of oil wells that 
“are about to produce.” I notice that several of these wells are more 
than a thousand miles distant—where I cannot investigate them—and 
that the drills are going down, that oil has been struck (only yesterday !) 
on adjoining territory, and that the prices of shares are rapidly rising. 
Within five days the price will positively go up from three to five cents. 
In fact, I am informed that a gusher may be struck at any moment, in 
which case the value of the stock will increase beyond the most sanguine 
anticipations and I, if I own sufficient shares, will find myself a million- 
aire. An “uninterested” business man telephones that he has wired a 
purchase, and that I can make no mistake if I do as he has done. The 
excitement and the prospect unsteady my pen and send my thoughts 
tracing through “air castles in Spain.” And then I remember how many 
drills have never reached oil, how many persons have invested their hard- 
earned savings in oil and lost, how little I really know about the pro- 
posed investment and the specific oil conditions—and after awhile my 
excitement passes, and I continue with equipoise in planning the remain- 
der of this chapter. 

An analysis of the real estate boom, a special type of financial craze, 
has been made by T. N. Carver.” Something happens to create an 
economic interest, such as the building of a new railroad, or perhaps 

"Principles of National Economy (Ginn, 1921), p. 434. 


158 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


merely a new subdivision in a population-increasing district, and money 
is doubled in buying and selling lots, and the excitement starts. 


Everyone wants to buy lots for the sake of selling again. The first effect 
is to increase greatly the number of buyers, and the effect of this is to send 
the price still higher. These buyers, as a consequence, also make money 
rapidly. ...So long as buyers are increasing faster than sellers, prices 
continue to go up; but when the buyers become less numerous than the sellers, 
which must inevitably happen, prices begin to fall. Suddenly, everyone be- 
comes a seller, and there are no buyers at all. Stagnation, depression, bank- 
ruptcy, and general ruin ensue. 


As the greatest financial craze perhaps was that which occurred about 
1720, when the slow-moving, conservative English mind was seized with 


the excitement attendant upon the financial prospects of the South Sea 


Company, so the greatest religious craze was probably known as Miller- 
ism, which developed in the United States between 1840 and 1845. 
William Miller went about preaching that the end of the world would 
catastrophically occur at a given date. As a result of a large number of 
addresses, he secured thousands of followers who, upon the appointed 
day, donned their ascension robes and went out into the open fields. 
Although the end of the world did not occur at the appointed time, a 


new date was set, and the followers of the false prophet ultimately 


established a new religious sect. 

Another expression of craze is seen in the “pogroms” in Russian 
Poland, for example, under the régime of the Czars. The peasants 
become frantic under the extortions of the Jews, who in turn have been 


compelled to pay large sums of money regularly to the Russian authorities — 


for relatively meager privileges. Often aroused by the Russian author- 


ities and sometimes stimulated by the Church, the peasants start wreaking — 


vengeance upon the Jews, the class directly above them, and who they 
are easily led to believe are the cause of all the harsh conditions of 
peasant life. In blind rage thus a “pogrom” is started, and does not stop 
with destruction of property. The frenzied peasant-mobs tear helpless 


children from terror-stricken parents and may even slay them before 


the eyes of those parents. The excitement spreads from village to village 
and then after a few days subsides, and the peasants return to their 
accustomed tasks, without having improved their conditions in the slight- 
est degree. In the case of a “pogrom” an accumulated sense of gross 
injustice reaches the point where it breaks over the bounds of personal 
control and viciously spends itself on any human groups who happen 
to be in the path of its fury. 


—S . . e 





| 


! 





FASHION IMITATION 159 





In all cases of craze, excitement is produced by a variety of factors 
ranging from the hope of sudden material gain or of religious glorifica- 
tion to the anger arising out of a long-swelling sense of injustice. It is 
important that people understand the social psychology of the craze in 
order that they may protect themselves against its ravages. 


THE FAD 


In order to obtain as many representative judgments as possible, rather 
than to rely on an individual judgment, I have each year for the past 
ten years called upon from ninety-five to one hundred and seventy persons 
to cooperate. Each has had some knowledge of social psychology. To- 
gether these persons have represented several leading professions and 
occupations with the teaching profession in the lead, including principals 
and teachers of many years’ experience as well as students in training. 

Each person was asked to indicate what he considered the five leading 
fads at the particular time. Of the total number of fads reported, all 
were discarded from each annual list except those being cited by at 
least five persons, which left a total of 735 different fads to be tabulated. 
Before each individual made out his personal list the point was emphasized 
that fads relate to many phases of life, not to one, and that the list should 
be representative of the varied human interests. 

The 735 fads were tabulated according to the phase of human life 
which they represented. Seven main fields were found, which together 
with the number of fads in each field and the correlative percentages are 
given herewith: 


Classification of Fads 
Nos. PerCent 


MRT EOVeSCUGNOCCCCOFAtION . . .. . . .)s's.eys vise oo we leeleagie 534 72.7 
REO SSEAOOUECOLALION os... oo ees eee mole scape 80 10.8 
Meee ANG TECTCALION 20.5.5. 5c becec seers cs emeue 42 57 
IN OE Sd PIPPraremi erin hi -)°) - 27 3.6 
OS A ESI eS | 23 aah 
kt, “ht 8 a a nerinrmrririniotr 3). 16 2 
MIT SCUITITCS 0, wa se ces cece ces as sens eee 13 1.7 
Total |.0:0)siels sicieretetd a 735 100 


The table indicates that matters of dress and personal decoration pre- 
dominate. Recreation on its amusement side comes next. Language or 


“slanguage” ranks third. Automobile styles, especially accessories, and 
architecture in its dwelling house phases follow. Education and culture 


160 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


bring up the rear. A comparison of the lists of fads for each year shows 
no outstanding changes in the order of emphasis. 

A further analysis of the data shows that (1) most fads relate to the 
superficial, ornamental, accessory, gew-gaw phases of life. Note these 
examples: | 


Kewpies on autos Phrase: “Ain’t we got fun.” 
Feathers on men’s hats Split sleeves at shoulders 
Fake moles Marathon dancing 


An examination of the lists for ten years reveals no important changes 
in superficiality from year to year—no improvement or decadence. 

(2) Approximately eighty per cent of the total number of fads appear 
in only one annual list, showing that the life of most fads is less than 
one year. For the last three years lists of fads have been secured twice 
a year—in April and November. About sixty per cent receiving five 
votes or over in any one list do not receive that number again, indicating 
that most fads survive less than six months. 

(3) Last year, lists of prevailing fads were obtained in April, August, 
and November. Forty per cent of the April list received five votes or 
over in the August list, and forty-two per cent of the August list ap- 
peared in the November classification with five or more votes, denoting 
that the ordinary fad is prominent for three months or less. For example, 
at one time during the European War (before the United States entered) 
the carrying of kewpies upon automobiles was common; a few months 
later they were displaced by the American flag, and then by allied flags. 
In a similar way, Charlie Chaplin fads passed over the country, rivaled 
only by Mary Pickford curls, and by one new joke after another on 
the Ford. : 

(4) A fad curve is also discernible, showing a somewhat rapid incline - 
or quick adoption, an extreme popularity or plateau of perhaps two or 
three months, and a sloping decline. Where a fad has real merit or is 
connected with an object of universal interest, its plateau may be greatly © 
prolonged. 

(5) A small percentage, not more than two per cent of the total, appear 
in three successive annual lists. Nearly all of these have definite utility 
and have been or are being generally adopted. They have survived the 
whirlpool of fashion and have been added to “progress.” Samples are: 





Men’s wrist watches Stop signs on autos 
Tonneau windshields Bobbed hair 
Home radio sets Tortoise shell rims 


| 





FASHION IMITATION 161 


(6) Fads sometimes cluster. They have points of polarization. For 
example, the “King Tut” fads included King Tut dresses, waists, cafés, 
interior house decorations, and many kinds of trinkets. “Liberty” fads 
included “liberty boy,” “liberty bond,” “liberty fair,’ “liberty parade,” 
“liberty steak,” “liberty sandwich.” In these cases the central theme is 
a person or object of widespread interest, and the plateau of the fad 
curves may be prolonged beyond the usual time length, continuing as 
long as the widespread interest in the main theme is maintained. 

In addition to these primary deductions, more psychological ones may 
be made. 1. The kaleidoscopic changes in superficialities of life that 
most fads represent, give their devotees little opportunity to develop and 
appreciate the truly beautiful or worthy. Unstable and quick-changing 


habits as well as superficial habits of judgment are produced. It is 





doubtful whether the exponent of fashion after these habits have been 
formed, discriminates at all regarding true progress in the fields where 
fads follow one another in quick succession. 

2. Fads arise out of a background of fashion imitation. They thrive 
because of a favoring public opinion. Where the novel is rated high 
and the “old” is treated disrespectfully or lightly, fads easily take the 
limelight honors. Fads flourish among those to whom “novelty is next 
to godliness.” The faddist abounds where prestige is accorded the new. 

While progress comes through giving a hearing to the new, yet giving 
leeway to fads overemphasizes the superficially new and that designed 
to be glamorous rather than real contributions to progress. Faddish- 
ness swings so far to the fashion extreme that it overlooks sensible and 
enduring values and thus may actually defeat progress. 

3. Fads flourish because of the human desires for recognition and 
new experience. Adopting a fad is a quick spectacular way to obtain the 
attention of one’s fellows. A fad dazzles. It attracts rivalrous glances, 
and makes its zealot the center of remarks exclamatory enough to satisfy 
the desires for recognition and new experience. By adopting one fad 
after another a person may keep his desire for recognition superficially 
satisfied, but personal growth is probably thereby hindered. The harvest 
of unstable habits is limitless and the waste is incalculable. Not through 
faddishness, but via discrimination, would seem to be the road to 
progress.® 


®*Cf. “Social Psychology of Fads,” by the writer, Jour. of Applied Sociology, 
VIII : 239-243. 


162 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DRESS 


Additional light on the nature of fashion is thrown by a further con- 
sideration of dress and clcthing. Among animals passive adaptation re- 
sults in the growth of feathers, fur, or other protective covering of the 
body. Protection from cold or wet is the primary need which clothing 
serves. | 

Sex differentiation, for example, in the feathers of birds, indicates 
another purpose of body covering—adornment. Since the female bird 
chooses her mate, males with the most beautiful plumage and the singing 
voice are chosen.® Males without resplendence enjoy less chance of sex 
selection, fail to reproduce their kind, and their strain dies out. 

At the lower end of the human scale clothing serves the same two 
purposes as among the higher animals—protection and sex ornamentation ; 
want of feathers and fur leads to clothing made from the skins and furs 
of animals and from fibrous plants. Feathers are artificially used for 
sex and prestige ornamentation. The male, who is chosen by the female, 
resorts to all sorts of ingenious, even painful, devices in order to increase 
his attractiveness. Ornamental scars are made upon the dark-skinned 
body. With the light-skinned early peoples of the temperate zones 
scarification, not easily discernible, is displaced by tattooing. Indigoes 
and similar dark substances are used to make permanent ornamentations 
upon the white skin. Ornamental purposes are further served by attach- 
ing rings, through perforatioys, to the ears, nose, lips, and by fastening 
them around the arms and ankles. Fantastic forms of male hair dress 
develop and beads of all colors are used to enhance bodily beauty. 

With the development of clothing for protective and ornamental pur- 
poses a third important element appeared—modesty. Ornamental cloth- 
ing often tended, and still does, to produce sex stimulation. In conse- 
quence, clothing not only caused modesty, but modesty in clothing ac- 
quired a tangible status. Three purposes thus are served by clothing, 
which probably developed in the following order—protection, ornamenta- 
tion (chiefly on sex planes), and modesty. 

With the rise of wife capture, the warrior states, and the patriarchal 
family, man becomes the wooer and woman the wooed. When woman 
was sought for by male courting and when her restricted sphere of routine 
work led her to seek variation, she concentrated attention on her clothing 


*George Elliott Howard, History of Matrimonial Institutions, 1: 203-208. 


FASHION IMITATION 163 


not primarily from the protective or modesty phases, but for purposes of 
ornamentation. The more beautiful she could make her appearance, the 
greater her chances of attracting the competitive glances of suitors, and 
consequently woman has often assumed a heavy load of sex ornamenta- 
tion. This burden has weighed her down, wasted her time, and hindered 
her mental progress. 

Among the hereditary leisure classes husbands sometimes encourage 
their wives; and parents, their daughters; to dress luxuriously—for mere 
display purposes. By such conspicuous and wasteful consumption of 
economic goods, husbands and parents are enabled to advertise their 
wealth.1° Thereby women are unwisely encouraged to stress ornamenta- 
tion rather than protection and modesty. There is truth in the assertion 
that among certain classes man has made woman a clay figure and kept 
her in a doll’s house. The display emphasis, on occasion, reaches such 
a pitch that considerations of protection and modesty in woman’s garb 
are ignored, while sex attributes are shamelessly flaunted. 

So extensively have women of the idle classes given attention to dress 
(ornament) as distinguished from clothing (protection and modesty), 
that some women find their supreme enjoyment in surpassing other 
women in gorgeousness of attire. At an afternoon gathering of leisure 
class women, each subtly observes how the others are gowned. At a 
men’s club, on the other hand, garb is rarely a subject of interest, while 
matters of more objective importance, such as business, politics, or sport, 
engage their attention. 

Men have not entirely escaped from the, customs of the days when 
they were the ornamented sex. Kings and courtiers still dress in splendid 
regalia. The Scotch kilt is a survival of early male embellishments. 
Members of large fraternal orders indulge yearly or biennially in a re- 
version to the days of the gorgeous plumage of the male. On such occa- 
sions the women are often outdone by the men, but the response of men 
to dress is collective and results in group uniformity and gorgeousness, 
whereas the response of women is more individualistic. 

Present tendencies in fashions in dress for women raise several dis- 
tinct problems. 1. The question of economic costs is serious when 
so much stress is laid upon expensive materials, upon having a new gown 
for every formal occasion, and when styles dart from one extreme to an- 
other. The cost of a fashionable woman is beyond computation. It has 
well been said that a marriage proposal means much more today (when 

*®T. Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Classes (Macmillan, 1912), Ch. IV. 


164 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
a 
a spring or fall hat costs twenty-five dollars each) than formerly (when 
a young wife wore on her head a shawl which she had made herself and 
which would last her several years). 

2. Fashion’s mandates enslave woman. Women are often nonplussed 
by the search to find that. which is at once stylish and becoming. Con- 
tinued attention to the forms and details of dress consume an immense 
amount of energy which might well be released in productive mental 
activities. | 

3. The rapid shifting in styles and the prestige of the “latest” arbi- 
trarily set aside a becoming style before it has had a chance to be fully 
appreciated. If the struggle were for increasingly beautiful clothing, it 
might be worth while, but under commercialism there is no constant gain 
from year to year in the beauty of dress. 

4. The extremes in woman’s dress continually verge on the immod- 
est. It is these extremes which attract most attention, and which cast 
discredit upon the sex. Newspapers give wide publicity to these abnormal- 
ities, which without publicity would tend to disappear. 

s. Fashion creates illusions. It fosters personal prestige “by cre- 
ating illusions of size, wealth, success, age, authority.” 14 Its activities are 
often limited to ringing simple changes upon these few notes. Its shrewd- 
ness in thus appealing to vanity is unanalyzed by its subjects. 

6. Efforts by women to establish a Dress Reform League have never 
been far-reaching. Such protection against the tyrannies of fashion in 
dress is needed, but attempts of this order have proved futile because 
of woman’s lack of experience in organizing, her lack of training in team- 
work, the differentiation function of dress, the tendency of leaders in 
dress reform to impose “mannish” styles of clothing upon women, and 
the failure to get a nation-wide uniformity of opinion. 


CONCLUSIONS 


There are many evidences that in the realm of fashion styles are 
changing in the United States more rapidly than ever. The pace is 
hotter owing to better communication, to the spread of a “hustle” civiliza- 
tion, and to the development of inexpensive methods of counterfeiting the 
costly. With the return of peace in 1918 fashion racing became frenzied. 
A buyer for a well-known American dry goods house reported to the 
writer in 1919 that he was unable to buy goods “expensive, extravagant, 
and wasteful enough” to meet the demands of the wealthy patrons of 

“June E. Downey, Plots and Personalities (Century, 1923), p. 70, 


FASHION IMITATION 165 


his store. The pace presumably had been set partly by the eighteen thou- 
sand new millionaires which were made in our country during the 
World War. 

On the other hand, the opposition to the tyranny of fashion is gaining 
ground. Not only is there an increasing number of independent voters 
in our nation, but also enlarging numbers resentful of fashion’s absurdi- 
ties. In the lead are the business woman and the athletic woman, but 
the former sometimes by her mannishness hurts the cause, and the 
latter sometimes by her slouchiness and disregard of the esthetic. There 
are, fortunately, increasing numbers of persons who place worth of 
character above stylishness and who withal are progressive in spirit, sane 
in judgment, and who exercise good taste. 


PRINCIPLES 


1. Intersocial stimulation is composed of suggestion and imitation, of 
stimulus and response, being expressed in fashion, convention, and 
custom. 

2. Fashion is a new or revived choice in behavior adopted for a brief 
time by a minority. 

3. The desire for new experience and the impulses toward differentia- 
tion prompt to fashion; reputability promotes it; fear of social dis- 
approval sanctions it; and a love of freedom and a progressive 
spirit multiply it. 

. Commercialism exercises almost arbitrary control over many fashions. 

. The fashion process is characterized by pace-setting and pace-fol- 
lowing. 

6. A craze is a fashion that flourishes as a direct result of excitement and 

) a fad is one borne aloft on the bubble of novelty. 

7. Fashion flourishes most in matters of dress, personal adornments, and 
amusements. 


wm 


| REVIEW QUESTIONS 


1. Why is fashion based on suggestion as well as on imitation? 
2. What is a fashion? 

3. Explain the differences between fashion and progress. 

4. How is “differentiation” a cause of fashion? 

5. Why is the new a basis of fashion? 

6. How does reputability aid fashion? 





166 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


ee — 


7. Illustrate: the fear of disapproval promotes fashion. 
8. How has commercialism captured fashions? 

9. Explain fashion racing. 

to. Give a new illustration of a craze. 

11. Distinguish betwen crazes and fads. 

12. Wherein lies the tyranny of fashion? 


PROBLEMS 


. Is the cash register fashionable? Why? 

_ Is it true that nothing is fashionable until it be deformed? 

_ Does extensive fashion imitation refine or debase one’s tastes? 

. Do you agree that any particular fashion “can never be generally in 

vogue’? 

5. How do you account for the fact that fashions tend to the extreme? 

6. Why has Paris been the center from which new fashions in woman's 
dress have emanated? , 

7. Are things reckoned beautiful in proportion to their cost? 

8. Why is a given fashion often considered beautiful when in style, and 
unsightly when out of style? 

9. Who are the more subject to fashion caprices, the feeling-swayed or 
the reason-swayed? Why? 

10. Explain: “One might as well be dead as out of fashion.” 

11. Why is the high gloss of a gentleman’s high hat considered more 
beautiful than “a similar high gloss on a thread-bare sleeve ?” 

12. Who are more responsible for fashion absurdities, the women who 
wear them or the men who are pleased by them? 

13. Do women give particular attention to dress in order to please them- 
selves, other women, or the men? 

14. For what different reasons do men buy dress suits and overall suits? 

15. Who are to be blamed the more for the waste of fashion, the con- 

sumers racing for distinction or the manufacturers and merchants 


racing for profits? 
16. To whom are the fashion shows the greater benefit, the merchant or 


the consumer ? 

17. How would you explain the fact that there is less rivalry in con- 
sumption of goods “among farmers than among people of cor- 
responding means in the city?” 

18. Why is it easier to save money in the country than in the city? 


WwW YN & 


FASHION IMITATION 167 





19. Is it true that the standard of living rises so rapidly with every in- 
crease in prosperity “that there is scarcely any let-up in the eco- 
nomic strain’? 

20. Who are more susceptible to craze “a hopeful, prosperous people,” or 
a “hopeless, miserable people’? 

21. Why is a dynamic society “more craze ridden” than one that moves 
along the lines of custom? 

22. What are the leading fads in your community at the present time? 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Aria, E., “Fashion, Its Survivals and Revivals,” Fortnightly Rev., 104: 
930-37: 

Biggs, A. H., “What Is ‘Fashion’?”, Nineteenth Cent., XX XIII: 235-46. 

Foley, C. H., “Fashion,” Econ. Jour., II: 478-94. 

Howard, G. E., Soctal Psychology (syllabus, Univ. of Nebraska, 1910), 
Sec, XI. 

Linton, E. L., “The Tyranny of Fashion,” Forum, 59-68. 

Patrick, G. T. W., “The Psychology of Crazes,” Pop. Sci. Mon., 
LVII: 285-94. 

Platt, Charles, The Psychology of Social Life (Dodd, Mead: 1922), 
he V 1 

Ross, E. A., Social Psychology (Macmillan, 1918), Chs. VI, XI. 

Principles of Sociology (Century, 1920), Ch. LIV. 

“Acquisitive Mimicry,’ Amer. Jour. of Sociology, XXI1: 443-45. 

Shaler, N. S., “The Law of Fashion,” Atlantic Mon., LXI: 386-08. 

Simmel, George, “Fashion,” International Quarterly, X: 130-55. 

Tarde, Gabriel, The Laws of Imitation (Holt, 1903), Ch. VII. 

Veblen, Thorstein, The Theory of the Leisure Class (Macmillan, 1912), 
Ohs 111, 1V, VII. 








CHAPTER XIV 
CUSTOM DIFFUSION 


LD and established ideas and ways of doing act as -ndirect and 

direct suggestion,—the response is custom diffusion. Custom sug- 
gestion is more largely indirect than fashion suggestion, and custom imi- 
tation is more frequently unconscious than in the case of fashion. Custom 
suggestion and imitation function powerfully in childhood, while fashion 
monopolizes more attention in early maturity. Since most persons imitate 
customs rather than start them, custom imitation is more direct and 
personal than custom suggestion. Together custom suggestion and custom 
imitation constitute custom diffusion. 


CUSTOM DIFFUSION AND HABI™ 


Custom diffusion has its strength in habit. Through the life of the 
home, the play group, the school group, and so on, customary ways of 
feeling, thinking, and doing become early adopted and established in the 
form of habitual reactions. The personal strength of custom is found 
in its utilization of habit; by taking the form of habits, custom assumes a 
degree of permanence.* 

By being born into a custom heritage the little child has his thought 
patterns molded to it before he is old enough to take notice ; and when he 
reaches an age of criticism, even his habits of examining and criticising 
are largely determined by custom. Thus, custom sets its stamp on human 
thinking and even on human judging. Custom determines most of the 
thinking of most people most of the time. It furnishes the fundamentals 
in education along religious, economic, political, and other lines. A basic 
problem in social psychology is not how persons make custom, but 
how “different customs, established interacting arrangements, form and 
nurture different minds.” Customs are the patterns into which indi- 
vidual activity weaves itself.2 Customs are collective patterns. They 
shape the impulses of individuals into dominating habits. 

Most of the political ideas of a youth twenty years of age are those 
of the preceding generation. If his parents are staunch Republicans or 


* See Chapter IV on “Habitual Nature.” 
John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct (Holt, 1922), p. 62; also pp. 75, 122, 
168 ; 
i 


CUSTOM DIFFUSION 169 


Democrats, he will be the same. In religion, the ordinary child in a 
devout Baptist family, or a Roman Catholic family, or a Hebrew family 
in Russia, or a Buddhist family feels and thinks as his parents whose 
reactions in turn are perhaps generations or centuries old. Thus in almost 
any field, custom exercises a powerful a priors influence by being trans- 
mitted from the habits of one generation to the habits of the next. 

The members of a primitive group in India who were accustomed to 
carry all loads on their heads were furnished with wheelbarrows and 
shown how to use them, but they refused to follow instructions. They 
persisted in carrying the loaded wheelbarrows on their heads so enslaved 
were they by custom and habit. As an individual grows old, he tends to 
rely more and more upon habitual thinking. What he has once settled 
upon, he is likely to abide by. If the analysis of a problem is difficult and 
the consideration of it has required considerable time, then the conclusions 
determined upon are likely to persist for years. To think is an effort, 
and to work through a complicated process requires courage so that when 
once a conclusion has been decided upon a person takes up the matter 
again seriously only with the greatest reluctance. So an idea may thus 
remain accepted long after its content has served its purpose. The indi- 
vidual’s current attitudes are often to be explained on the ground of 
decisions made twenty or fifty years ago. As a person grows older he is 
more apt to rest content with past decisions; the less likely is he to take 
up anew questions to which perhaps he once gave an open mind, for 
example, whether he should become a Democrat or a Socialist, what 
religious faith or denomination should he ally himself with, or what type 
of business or professional ethics should he accept. For this reason, 
therefore, custom has much of its backing from elderly people. 

As persons mature they are less energetic, lose initiative, indulge in 
reminiscence rather than plan undertakings ahead. There tends to set 
in a mental decay which unfits an aged person from being a progressive. 

Age, of course, does not need to become conservative. As one grows 
old he may be controlled by the habit of inquiry, of looking forward, of 
renouncing outworn beliefs. A group also may discriminate between its 
reactionary and its liberal-minded elderly people, and thus keep age in 
control without blindly obeying custom. A liberal elderly person may 
combine experience and progressiveness in a happy proportion, approxi- 
mating all the benefits of the Aristotelean mean; and thus represent a 
better leader than one filled with the zeal of youth without discretion. 
Such a leader may conserve the best values in a given custom, and modify 
the whole custom for the current good of the group. 


170 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


EE a aD 


CUSTOM DIFFUSION AND THE FEELINGS 


Custom diffusion follows the feeling planes. Memories of the beautiful 
and lovely fortunately live long, and become sacred. The spiritually help- 
ful is fleeting enough at best, and the role of custom in giving the best 
things of the spiritual life an extended existence is as a rule a social gain. 
The best of the past may thus continue into the present, although at 
times even the spiritually best of a bygone age is hampering when many 
new needs have arisen. Respect for parents, reverence for religion, 
respect for law are additional examples of the salutary operation of 
custom and while the principle sometimes creates maladjustments it con- 
serves socially useful values. A more universal recognition of this prin- 
ciple in the United States at the present time is to be desired. 

One of the most virulent phases of the feeling expressions of custom. 
is found in prejudices. If these are taught a person when he is a child, 
he overcomes them in later life only with extreme difficulty. They” 
operate with the greatest possible tenacity in connection with hatred and 
kindred sentiments and hold people under their yoke even when rational 
judgment indicates otherwise. 


CUSTOM DIFFUSION AND GROUP HERITAGE 


Custom diffusion culminates in group heritage. It is the content and 
spirit of the past ;? it is the best of racial experience. It is unscientifically 
preserved and transmitted ; it has often suffered wholesale destruction as 
a result of national calamity; and its preservation has rested upon the 
fickle reactions of public opinion, particularly of the opinion of the ruling» 
classes and the privileged few. It includes the moral and religious con- 
victions of the past, and carries the ripe judgments of the seers and 
prophets of ancient days. Custom develops out of the experiences of 
persons and becomes molded into powerful sanctions.* It includes tradi- 
tions, or “the age old modes of thought or action expressive of the historic 
spirit of the group.” 

Since customs are indirect suggestions that are unconsciously imitated 
in the early years of life, since they are so numerous, so omnipresent, 
so much a part of childhood’s environment that the imitation of them is 
universal, their influence is inestimable. Man’s social behavior is con- 


*Cf. Graham Wallas, Our Social Heritage (Yale Univ. Press, 1921). 
*Cf. W. G. Sumner, Folkways (Ginn, 1907). 


CUSTOM DIFFUSION 171 





ditioned and largely determined by the character, past and present, of the 
social and economic organization in which he has been reared.® 

Custom diffusion thrives best where social contacts are few and non- 
stimulating. In isolation, group heritages have little competition and rule 
with an iron hand.® To the extent that communication is hampered geo- 
graphic isolation fosters custom imitation. Then there is economic isola- 
tion, for the consumptive standards of the rich do not greatly influence 
the poor, although in a country where fashion is encouraged and cheap 
imitations are prevalent, custom imitation loses a part of its force. Edu- 
cation, isolation, and a lack of appreciation of culture give custom 
imitation unlimited leeway. Social isolation debars persons from 
recognition and from social stimuli; hence, they remain the victims of 
too much custom imitation. 


MAIN FIELDS OF CUSTOM CONTROL 


Custom control is maintained prominently in the following cultural 
fields: language, religion, ritual, and law. 1. Our language is received 
so early in life—its basic elements being fixed before we begin to think— 
that when we later scrutinize it we find ourselves largely its slaves. The 
fundamental speech habits are fixed in the pre-thinking years and thus 
constitute a substratum to thinking habits themselves; they cannot easily 
be uprooted. 

2. Religious beliefs are given a setting in the feeling reactions of life. 
They are usually taken on faith, and when once accepted are hard to 
modify. They are often received in the early years of life indirectly and 
as a result of the home atmosphere. The supernatural factors in religion 
arouse fear, awe, and respect, and these when ingrained by habit in child 
nature are almost impossible to be changed. Hence, custom functions 
easily in the religious life. 

3. Ritual at first carries standard ideals and beliefs, and continuing to 
do so, represents one of the most significant expressions of custom.’ A 
ritual sometimes reflects social experience reduced to its most tangible 
and succinct terms. It often discloses strong social aspirations that are 
put in suppliant form, such as the Lord’s Prayer. 

The performance of ritual is usually a group affair. The aim is to 
secure something that is judged worth while. There is generally implied 


*Douglas, Hitchcock, and Atkins, The Worker in Modern Economic Society 
(Univ. of Chicago Press, 1923), p. 75. 
*See Chapter VIII. 


1x2 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


TE ONIN Bo 8 a ae cla 
an agreement in conduct resulting from the tacit recognition of a uni- 
versal and social need.’ 

The ritual is maintained as symbol of social or group values, and 
dies out when these disappear, unless external force is applied in its behalf. 
Its original content is often forgotten, and new life is introduced into it. 
The religious ritual is to-day undergoing such a transformation. Its 
earlier individualistic content in this country no longer suffices and so its 
more awakened advocates are introducing a “social creed” in order to 
meet the needs of the hour and at the same time to prevent the religious 
ritual from falling into disrepute among persons who are abreast of the 
times. 

The ritual however tends to become a “mere mumbling,’ an habitual 
mechanism without meaning. The habitual repetition of its terminology, 
however, has a steadying effect on a person’s life; it constitutes an anchor 
and represents an element of dependence. 

4. The concept of Jaw gets its earliest meanings in terms of punish- 
ment with its accompaniments of suffering, fear, and respect. In mature : 
years the actual contacts with law are found in terms of humiliation, 
physical incarceration, and social isolation. These engender a feeling 
setting for the operation of law, and make it difficult to be changed when 
once it becomes established. | 

Law, moreover, stands for a consensus of group judgment. Time must 
elapse, first, before facts can be known; second, before the majority of a 
group, especially if the group be large, can make up their minds; and 
hence law must lag behind the times. When a line of conduct is given 
both support and opposition, it is impossible for a law to be fully recog- 
nized and it may thus become antiquated when finally enforced. 

Law attempts to standardize conduct, and in so doing it becomes 
formal, conventionalized, and fixed. It deals with overt acts which often 
belie the spirit behind them. At times a form of behavior is created to 
conceal the spirit behind them, or to conceal a spirit of behavior of a 
different type. Law cannot regulate motives and hence in confining itself 
to behavior it may become encysted in change-resisting forms. 


IRRATIONAL PHASES OF CUSTOM CONTROL 
Custom control is often highly irrational. An established custom is 
apt to represent ideas derived by out-worn methods. The Ptolemaic 


™An excellent treatise of ritual as custom is F. G. Henke’s, A Study in the 
Psychology of Ritualism (Univ. of Chicago Press, I9IO). 


CUSTOM DIFFUSION 173 


theory persisted long after inductively derived astronomical knowledge 
ceased to justify it. When a new and more accurate concept, the Co- 
pernican thesis, was proclaimed, the older theory was supported in many 
bitter conflicts, chiefly ecclesiastical. The common drinking cup is still 
used by the unscientifically minded, and by those who ignore bacteria. 
Wine at communion persists in days of prohibition. Custom, becoming 
habitually established in human thought, has no ready means of response 
to fashion, science or anything new, and hence functions after the stalk 
on which it grew has withered. 

Custom control is indiscriminate, conserving the bad along with the 
good. Being non-moral it needs to be recurrently examined in the light 
of science. The fact that a way of doing has been followed successfully 
in the past implies present usefulness, but utility in the past is not neces- 
sarily a guarantee of current serviceableness, because conditions and 
needs may have changed. Hence, even customs of high repute require 
testing from time to time. 

A written constitution may be well suited to its day, but in some ways 
be a hindrance under the changed social conditions of a later century. 
The sanction of the whole carries with it the sanctity of the parts, in- 
cluding the out-of-date sections. Individuals have established endow- 
ments by will for worthy purposes; but conditions shifted and the en- 
dowment legacy no longer met needs. ‘Moreover, the legacy cannot be 
changed if in the meantime the giver has died. Perpetual endowments 
for teaching children to card, spin, and knit, were worthy at the time, 
but when inventions turned carding, spinning, and knitting into machine 
processes, these became useless. The custom of keeping windows in 
houses closed tightly was meritorious in the days when the wind blew 
in under the rafters, between the logs, and through the floors, but is un- 
healthful when houses are built better; and yet the custom remains with 
many people. Race prejudice, necessary in the time of fang and claw, is 
harmful under the reign of increasing good will, yet it rules blindly 
to-day even among the cultured. Political autocracy was justified when 
99 per cent of the people were illiterate, but is anti-social when the 
majority are educated and thoughtful; yet its spirit governs many so- 
called political leaders. 

The long summer school vacation seems to have originated in the days 
when children were kept at home to help in caring for the crops. But 
strangely enough this procedure was carried over into urban school sys- 
tems so that hundreds of thousands of children are turned loose to run 
unsupervised on dangerous city streets, to play without direction in dark 


174 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


aaa 0/000 Td SL Ue cD sD SS 


hallways and dirty alleys or to waste away their time in idleness and mis- 
chievousness for three months every year. “Although half of us are 
urban, every June we close the schools of our cities and turn millions 
of children into the streets—to hoe corn and bug potatoes!” ® 

Slavery was a boon when it originated, for it spared the lives of war 
captives, who previously would have been slain. But it persisted into a 
day of free labor and of social democracy, being given the sanction of 
both law and religion in the slave-holding states of the South. Past 
acceptance served as a blind behind which it could be maintained even 
against the best interests of the slave states. 

Custom creates irrational crusts of behavior over the top of society; it 
fosters irrational leadership. In religion, it naturally appears as dog- 
matism. The spokesmen for the supernatural speak authoritatively and 
dogmatically, and what they say may be questioned only at the risk of 
appearing sacrilegious and heretical. In the economic world “trusts” 
persist in their manipulations of the public. The political autocrat has 
all the power of government behind his ancient decrees, and can imprison - 
or behead all who remonstrate. | 


CUSTOM DIFFUSION AND PROGRESS 


Custom diffusion is basic to progress. No matter what may be the 
weaknesses of custom, it represents all the best of the past that has been 
saved from the jaws of time. It props law and order but not always 
justice. It is the foundation upon which the*future is being built. By it 
each succeeding generation is sustained and enabled to advance. More- 
over, it furnishes the materials from which inventions spring. 

Custom diffusion represents a beginning of the socialization process. 
By adopting given customs, the members of a group have begun uncon- 
sciously to think and act together.? They are also acting in harmony with 
preceding generations, and are inadvertently giving recognition of group 
values as well as exemplifying the spirit of cooperation—all of which may 
be considered evidences of group progress. 


PRINCIPLES 


1. Old and established ideas and ways of doing act as stimuli or sug- 
gestions which are widely imitated—the result is custom diffusion. 


*E. A. Ross, Principles of Sociology (Century, 1920), p. 50I. 
I. Edman, Human Traits (Houghton Mifflin, 1920), p. 419. 


CUSTOM DIFFUSION 175 





2. 


—_ 
pe Sn ot tg te Ne 


Ll 


foal 
bo» 


The chief strength of customs occurs when they become integrated 
in the habits of persons; they flourish in the early, uncritical years 
of life and in the later years with their fixed habits. 


. Custom diffusion is favored by the feelings and sentiments. 
. Custom control rules in social isolation, where the social contacts are 


few or non-stimulating. 

The main fields of custom diffusion are in language, religion, ritual, 
and law. 

The imitation of specific customs easily becomes irrational because 
customs survive their usefulness. 


. Custom diffusion is the chief conserving factor in society ; it indirectly 


promotes socialization. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. What is a custom? 


Distinguish between custom suggestion and custom imitation. 


. How is custom diffusion related to habit? 


Why do the feelings strongly support custom diffusion? 
What is the relation of social heritage to custom imitation? 
Why is custom imitation strong in religion? 


. For what different reasons is custom imitation dominant in languages ? 


Why is law a stronghold of custom imitation? 
Explain the tendency of custom imitation to become irrational. 
How may a written constitution become a social handicap? 


. How do long summer vacations for school children illustrate custom 


imitation ? 


. How does custom imitation contribute to progress? 


PROBLEMS 


. What is the origin of the term “custom?” 
. Why are army officers required by law to retire at sixty-four years 


of age? 


. Why has it been customary to choose men who are past middle age as 


popes and judges? 


. What customs can you name which have developed in the United 


States ? 


. Why are people in old countries more custom-abiding than people in 


new ? 


176 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


we ORT R Se Se SS 

6. How does the mastery of the classics “affect one’s social stability” ’ 

7. What is meant by “the neophobia of the old’? 

8 Is it true that majorities do not necessarily stand for truth and 
justice but often for the customs and convictions of the past? 

g. Of what custom is Hallowe’en a survival ? | 

10. Is the law library “the main laboratory of the law student’? 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Dewey, John, Human Nature and the Social Order (Holt, 1922), Chs. 
PV Vs 

Edman, Irwin, Human Traits (Houghton Mifflin, 1920), Ch. XI. 

Hearn, W. E., The Aryan Household (Longmans, Green: 1891), Ch. 
XVI. 

Howard, G. E., Social Psychology (syllabus, Univ. of Nebraska, IQIO), 
Bree, GER & 

Lang, A., Custom and Myth (Longmans, Green: 1904), pp. 10-28. 

Ross, E. A., Principles of Sociology (Century, 1920), Chs. XV, XLITS 

Social Psychology (Macmillan, 1908), Chs. XII, XV. 

Social Control (Macmillan, 1910), Ch. XV. 

Sumner, W. G., Folkways (Ginn, 1907). 

Wissler, Clark, The American Indian (Oxford University Press, 1922), 
Ch. XII 








CHAPTER XV 
CONVENTION DIFFUSION 


USTOM and convention are terms that are often used interchange- 
ably. Sometimes custom is made to include convention.’ In the fol- 
lowing discussion four main distinctions are made. (1) Convention is 
employed primarily to refer to the form and custom to the content of an 
idea or action that is socially inherited and imitated. (2) On the whole 
convention is much less able to stand the test of rational criticism than is 
custom, although the formal side of life unless overstressed gives dependa- 
bility to functional activities. (3) There is more superficial talk about 
convention than custom, especially among the people who lay great stress 
upon manners.” (4) Convention ordinarily outlives custom, for by its 
very nature, the skeleton remains after the spirit has departed. 
Convention and custom, however, are more alike than different; both 
are non-competitive, both are imitations of the past, both are inculcated 
chiefly in the immature years of life. Convention, like custom, operates 
as both suggestion and imitation; it is the imitation phase which is more 
personal and hence pertinent; the two phases together constitute conven- 
tion diffusion. Since convention relates to the formal phases of life and 
custom to the content and functional elements, it is clear that convention 
and custom generally relate to different phases of the same thing. Much 
that was said in the preceding chapter about custom applies in a way to 
convention; much that will be presented in this chapter concerning con- 
vention is vitally related to custom, There are many instances, however, 
where the structural side of an activity has become separated from a 
living content, and hence stands alone—a mere shell. In other cases, the 
function has been transferred or has become desiccated, leaving chiefly a 
convention which still performs mechanically and lives on because some 
people secure authority from its established prestige. 


_*One of the best discussions of the relationship between custom and convention 
is given by E. A. Ross, in his Social Psychology (Macmillan, 1908), Ch. XII. Also 
see R. H. Gault, Social Psychology (Holt, 1923), Ch. VIII. 

*The distinction that convention is an unthought feeling of acceptance, approval 
or disapproval of a point of view or form of behavior or station in life, while a 
custom is an overt method, form or habit of behavior which gives outward expres- 
sion to the feeling of approval or disapproval (Gault, Social Psychology, 179) 
seems questionable, 


17 


178 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


Convention differs from fashion in many ways, for example, in being 
non-competitive in character. All strive to imitate it exactly rather than to 
push it to extremes in the competitive strife to outdo one another. It is 
not open to discussion, question, criticism ; it is undeliberately maintained. 
The assumption is that everyone will adopt it. It is not promoted by the 
few for a short time as is fashion. 

Convention arrives through social heredity: A person who accepts a 
convention, does so by adding it to his stock of accepted procedures, as 
distinguished from him who accepts a fashion, for the latter person is 
giving up a new procedure for a newer one.2 The process in the first 
case involves psychic addition; in the second case, psychic substitution. 

Convention is often basic to fashion changes ; it is the crust over which 


fashion cyclones move. The rigid convention of women wearing hats — 


indoors at public gatherings, even in church, is a psychic background on 
which plays the rapid changes of the styles in women’s hats. Likewise, 


formal occasions persist conventionally without being seriously questioned 
while being used at the same time as a framework for fashion scintilla- 


tions, The convention is unquestioned that an elaborate evening gown ~ 
must be worn by a lady at a formal evening affair ; this convention carries — 


with it the continuous permission to exercise a variety of fashion choices. 
The convention obtains among men of wearing woolen suits, but this 


non-competitive convention bears on its surface among many men, ~ 
especially young men, a flashy display of fashion changes. Convention — 


may thus be likened to ‘Atlas carrying the world of fashion upon his 
shoulders. 


STRUCTURAL NATURE OF CONVENTIONS 


Convention deals primarily with social structures rather than with social — 


functioning. Convention is represented chiefly by forms. The eating of 
three meals a day by Americans, carrying food to the mouth with a fork, 
serving coffee at an evening dinner party, and so on, all deal with the forms 


of securing nourishment, not with nourishment itself. A formal reception 


affords opportunities for strangers to be introduced to each other and to 


express a few words of greeting, to act as though they were old-time 


friends, bowing graciously to each other, but not to develop very much 


real and abiding friendship. Almost a negligible percentage of the per- 
sons one is introduced to at a formal reception thereby become pef- 


manent friends. It is the form rather than the throbbing content of 


*Ross, Social Psychology, p. 196. 


CONVENTION DIFFUSION 179 


friendship which is present. In the same way the making of formal calls 
and the leaving of calling cards are of the form rather than the essence 
of friendship. 

Manners are elaborate conventional forms relating to nearly all the 
social relationships of cultured persons. They are intended to smooth 
off the rough edges of social contacts. They prevent individuality from 
hindering the functioning of sociality. Manners are methods of social 
approach, implying incipient good will. 

When carried to an extreme, manners are deceptive. Politeness is 
an illustration of manners that easily become lying. In order not to 
offend the feelings and the friendship of another person one may tell 
him how fine he looks in a new unbecoming hat; or how well he looks, 
when he is ill; or how splendid a speech he made when he blundered. 

Even in the ordinary exercise of manners, the form often belies the 
spirit. Two track contestants who at heart hate each other, shake 
hands before the race—in the presence of the spectators. Business forms 
sanction addressing a strange woman as “My dear Madam.” 

As society grows older it gives more heed to manners and to the 
forms of social interaction. The pioneer is too busy mastering the wilder- 
ness and making adjustments mental and social to give time to the formal 
sides of social life, and hence is brusque or even rude. His pioneer life 
affords him few social contacts, and the “rough edges” of his conduct 
disturb no one, for there is plenty of elbow room. But when pioneering 
ends and a people depend on nature less and on one another more, they 
turn their attention to social forms as well as contents and develop manners 
even to the point of obsequiousness. Especially is this true where autoc- 
racy rather than democracy prevails. 


ORIGINS OF CONVENTIONS 


Convention is based on past real or alleged utihty. What is now a 
convention is often merely a shell of a former useful activity. The dress 
suit coat was once a long, square-cornered coat, but the corners were 
troublesome in horse-back riding and so two buttons were put on the back 

of the coat and the corners were buttoned upon them. Later, square 
) corners were cut out of the front of the coat, leaving the two buttons on 
the back, where they have remained useless. The square corners that 
were cut from the front facilitated horseback riding; they are still cut 
out although new means of traveling have superseded horseback riding. 
The square notches in the collar of a man’s coat once served a useful 


180 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


purpose; when overcoats were not worn and when the collar of the 
regular coat was turned up, the notched out corners made a place for 
the chin of the wearer. The collars of ordinary coats are no longer 
turned up, but the notches are still cut out of them. 

The French heel once served a useful purpose. It was first worn by 
Louis XIV who because of his short stature had several “lifts” added to 
the heels of his shoes. The French heel is no longer worn by short men, 
nor exclusively by short women, but by women generally, not to increase 
height, but to be conventional in defiance of all the demands to the con- 
trary of personal hygiene and comfort in walking. In the same way the 
unserviceable hoods on academic gowns are still maintained; they 
originated in a definite utility to the monks who wore them several 
centuries ago. 

Superstitions persist in a conventional way, without merit; but once 
they were instruments of worth. The superstition of “knocking on wood” 
which appears silly today represented at one time a genuine religious 
spirit of supplication and consisted in prayerfully touching the wooden 
cross. 

Every religious dogma likewise once represented an advanced idea or 
belief, but it became rooted in religious custom and may remain today as 
a convention, although several centuries behind modern scientific know- 
ledge. Economic laissez-faire doctrines once served to stimulate the masses 
who were being released under a rising tide of democracy, but now they 
are tolerated conventionally, while governmental control increases apace. 

The belief in luck was valid in primitive days when the unknown 
impinged on every hand, when the simpler phenomena of nature were not 
understood, when locomotion was slow and communication was limited 
to the voice. Under such conditions the belief in luck often gave the 
needed amount of initiative and of persistence to insure success. This 
belief still maintains itself, but only as convention except in the field of 
gambling,* where it acts as an all-powerful lure in causing people to risk 
their money for improbable returns. What is rational in one age is apt 
to persist until it no longer meets human needs, and thus becomes 
metamorphosed into convention. 

Convention has been largly created by the hereditary leisure classes.® 
Not being forced to earn a living or to work strenuously, they often give 
their attention to the fringes anc. the forms of life, magnifying and ex- 
aggerating them. Since “society affairs” fill their lives, much attention is 


“T. Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (Macmillan, 1912), Ch. XI. 
"1bid., Ch. 1. 


CONVENTION DIFFUSION 181 


given to the forms of being introduced, of greeting, of all the phases of 
politeness ; “manners” rule relentlessly. 

For the average person the origin of convention is found in an unthink- 
ing acceptance or doing of prevailing ideas or activities. We lazily drift 
“into an acceptance of prevailing conditions and attitudes as they are 
found in our immediate place and time, as when we drift into our political 
and religious life.” ° 

Many conventions are specific developments of general conventions or 
of a conventional atmosphere, partly caused by and partly the cause of a 
prevailing opinion. For example, “the polite thing in Belgium and 
France is always to address a young woman of marriageable age as 
‘Madame,’ instead of ‘Miss’ as with us.” ? 

The hereditary leisure groups use convention imitation to foster 
undemocratic teachings. This point found expression in the false social 
dogma which is spread by the “upper” classes that “manual labor is 
degrading.” Ina commercial age it is easy for the false belief of a busi- 
ness class that “pecuniary success is the only success,” to permeate even 
the education of the young in the home and school. 

Autocracy readily employs itself in getting undemocratic ideas 
inculcated into the lower class customs. By every conceivable type of 
direct and indirect suggestion false conceptions are taught in order that 
these deceivers may assume an air of superiority. Factory girls let it be 
known—often by a glance of the eye—that servant girls will not be 

admitted to their parties. In South America guests in hotels or at clubs 
get themselves respected by encouraging the doctrine “of being waited 
on.”® Hence self-serve cafeterias are always scorned by autocratic indi- 
viduals. This practice becomes ridiculous in the story of the French 
king who allowed himself to be fatally over-heated because there was 
no servant present at the moment to move his seat away from the hearth- 
fire. 

Education is easily duped by blind guides with conventionalized anti- 
social ideas. American Rhodes scholars when in England have been 
“looked at askance for doing for themselves things which the British 
student has done for him by his ‘scout’.”*? The members of American 
University rowing crews have been “protested” in England because they 


*R. H. Gault, Social Psychology, p. 183. 

"Whiting Williams, Horny Hands and Hampered Elbows (Scribners, 1922), 
Dp. 262. ; 
he The best presentation of this fact is found in E. A. Ross’ Social Psychology, 
| Ch, VII. 
; ow i Ross, Principles of Sociology (Century, 1920), p. 351. 


182 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


were not “gentlemen,” as proved by the fact that they were working their 
way through college.** 

Clericalism promotes countless conventions as a means of maintaining 
itself in power, for example, the holier than thou demeanor, the vest- 
ments, the emphasis on creeds. Militarism likewise flaunts conventions, 
as illustrated in the haughty manners of many officers, the meticulous 
attention to saluting, and the fine distinctions made in obeying orders. 
Imperialism holds tenaciously to “rights.” 


IMPERIOUSNESS OF CONVENTIONS 


Convention rules imperiously. It brooks no question; if challenged it 
cries “heretic,” “traitor,” “anarchist,” “bolshevist.” Dreading criticism, 
*t hides in the semi-darkness of awe, fear, and respect of its devotee. Its 
meanings are drilled into child nature by repetition and ritual. The 
uncritical years and the lack of judgment of childhood lead to its easy 
acceptance. The “sacred memories” of childhood combine to enforce its 
dominion over maturity. It can be removed from its throne only 
through exercise of the highest degree of personal self control and rational 
insight. 

Convention’s imperiousness increases with the age of a soctety. A new 
civilization is too fluid to have developed the formal phases of associative 
life. The pioneer is forced by circumstances to rely on himself too much 
to be considerate of social forms. But as a civilization matures, the 
reactions of individuals crystallize into standard types of behavior, and 
when it passes maturity and its life energies slow up, its structural side 
turns to bone, which the enterprising individual may peck at but cannot 
dent. . 

With the rise of convention imperiousness, the forms of life control 
the content, and often assume in self protection a deceptive coloring. 
A bluff and bluster may deceive a few, but ultimately the shrivelled 
heart, the decayed core, is disclosed, and the societary ramshackle falls. 
The Czar and his followers killed those who opposed them, until the 
exigencies of war required that these “enemy” subjects be consigned | 
to fight in the Czarist armies, but the demands of urgent war situations: 
finally revealed the thinness of the shell by which the imperial party. 
had domineered over a nation. A few quick revolutionary strokes were 
made, and the shell collapsed without giving evidence of even a tremor, 
so weak had it become. 

* Ross, ibid., p. 360. 


7 
| 
: 


CONVENTION DIFFUSION 183 


Convention imitation arbitrarily limits competition between classes. 
Not only is convention imitation universal and non-competitive on a 
given social level, but it prevents one level from imitating another. 
Caste forbids one social status from imitating the one above it. “In 
Japan the code of the jinrikisha men forbids one runner to pass by 
another going in the same direction.”!* The private may not wear the 
uniform of the officer, and the layman may not don the robes of the 
clergy. It is partly for reasons like this that conventions remain uni- 
form. The urge or competition making necessary any modification has 
been crushed out. 


TRANSFORMATIONS IN CONVENTIONS 


Convention often undergoes a transformation in meaning. After losing 
its original content, it cleverly lives on by bodying forth new meanings. 
Hallowe’en, once an expression of the belief in the return of departed 
spirits, now serves as an occasion of festivities ranging from ordinary 
social “parties” to rowdy expeditions by obstreperous youth. Thanks- 
giving Day with its family altar and church gatherings of thankfulness 
to Almighty God now is looked forward to by many as an occasion for 
overeating or for witnessing a football contest. 

Convention survives by becoming recognized as symbolic. The 
Apostles’ Creed is repeated by many thousands who no longer believe it 
in all particulars, but justify their hypocrisy on the ground that it is' 
the general spirit of the Creed to which they subscribe rather than 
the particular statements in it. Rituals are accepted as symbolic, but 
not always in their particular professions. The House of Lords is 
endured not for its present worth but as representative of past national 
glory. The antiquated ideas of some aged people are not challenged 
because of respect for hallowed fatherhood and motherhood. The King 
James version of the Bible with its sometimes figurative rather than 
accurate translations is maintained out of courtesy to the “King’s Eng- 
lish.” Although expressive of a crude social order the classics of the 
Romans, Greeks, and Hebrews are still read widely; for the sake of 
the best a large amount of dross is conventionally carried along. A 
university was once located at an ox ford, and another at Cam’s Bridge; 
each of these plebeian terms has become conventionalized and immortal- 
ized in the names of England’s two great institutions of higher learn- 
ing. | 

“E. A. Ross, ibid., p. 189. 


184 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


PRD a NN nD et sic We Kinet sR Secon Snr nm ne 


PRINCIPLES 


1, The non-competitive uniformities of behavior relating to the formal 
or structural phases of life are conventional. © 

2. Convention is an imitation of past forms that are usually inculcated 
in the early uncritical years of life. | 

3. Convention is the structural phase of the activities and beliefs of 
which custom is the content or functional element; it may become 
entirely separated from custom, the latter having shrivelled 
away. 

4. When the content of a past alleged or real utility disappears the form 
may persist as a convention. 

s. A main section of the field of convention is represented by manners 
and the forms of “polite society.” 

6. Convention has often been created by the hereditary leisure classes, _ 
who unduly magnify formalities. 

7. Convention rules imperiously, and increasingly so, as the age of a 
group advances. | 

8. Convention may survive by adopting new meanings or by becoming 
symbolic. a 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


1. Explain the relation of convention to custom. 

2. How are convention and fashion related? 

3. Why is the display of good manners conventional among the leisure 
classes ? 

4. What survivals, no longer useful, are there in the quaintly cut dress ~ 
suit coat? 

5. What is the origin of most conventions ? 

6. Why does convention rule imperiously ? 

7. Explain the relation of convention to social competition. 

8. How do conventions sometimes change their meanings? 

g. Illustrate: convention is symbolic. 


PROBLEMS 


1. Name three leading conventions that you have followed today. 
2. Why does a Christian take off his hat in church and a Mohammedan _ 
his shoes? ; 


CONVENTION DIFFUSION 185 


3. Explain: Manners become worse as one travels from East to West— 
they are best in Asia, fairly good in Europe, poor in America. 

4. Why has the dress suit for men remained more or less the same the 
world over? 

5. Why may a man wear the same dress suit for years, whereas a woman 
must have a new dress for almost every formal occasion? 

6. In what utility did the hood on the academic gown originate? 

7. Explain: “Such generally admired beauties of person or costume as 
the bandaged foot, the high heel, the wasp waist, the full skirt, and 
the long train are such as incapacitate from all useful work.” 

8. Illustrate: “Almost everywhere propriety and conventionality press 
more mercilessly on woman than on man, thereby lessening her 
range of choice and dwarfing her will.” 

g. Is our food a matter of personal choice or of convention? 

10. Does one’s manner of living, or manner of work change the more 
rapidly, and why? 
11. What are conventions for? 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Baldwin, J. M., Social and Ethical Interpretations (Macmillan, 1906), Ch. 
> & 

Cooley, C. H., Social Organization (Scribners, 1909), Chs. XVIII, XX, 
XXX. 

Howard, G. E., Social Psychology (syllabus, University of Nebraska, 
POLO) ect, «Ll. 

Platt, Charles, The Psychology of Social Life (Dodd, Mead: 1922), Ch. 
V. 

Ross, E. A., Social Psychology (Macmillan, 1908), Chs. VII-XI. 

Veblen, T., The Theory of the Leisure Class (Macmillan, 1912), Chs. 
1 lo ih 


CHAPTER XVI 
DISCRIMINATION 


ASHION, custom, and convention imitation lead to contradictions and 

consequent discrimination. The anomalous elements in conduct are 
best discovered by rational analysis and discriminating habits of thought. 
True progress implies the elimination of the irrational with which fashion, 
custom, and convention are honeycombed. Discrimination seeks merit and 
the worthy; it discards the useless; it implies a maximum degree of 
rational imitation. It sifts the tawdry and the cheap from fashion but 
keeps and imitates the worth while; it breaks with customs that unduly 


repress, but stands by those which are dynamic; it challenges conventions © 


and forms that hinder service and growth, but keeps and imitates those 
that give necessary order and dignity to the values of life. Discrimination 
makes a cross section of fashion, custom, and convention, discarding the 
useless in each and adopting the worthy in each. i 


DISCRIMINATION AND FASHION IMITATION 


Inasmuch as fashion imitation rests largely upon novelty, social prestige, 
reputability, differentiation, it is ordinarily irrational. Of a hundred new 
fashions that may be selected at random from several fields, only a few 
possess lasting merit. As shown in the chapter on fashion,! fads usually 
are futile, wasteful, and superficial, and develop bad habits of mind. On 
the other hand, a new meritorious idea or activity may appear mutation- 
like amidst a flood of shifting fashions and needs to be recognized and pro- 
moted: hence it is not an arbitrarily negative attitude that should be 
assumed regarding fashion but rather a critical, open-minded attitude. 


DISCRIMINATION AND CUSTOM IMITATION 


Since customs are ways of doing which have met the tests of genera- 
tions, and since human needs change slowly, a larger portion of customs 


are rational than would at first appear. Attention is commonly called to- 
those customs which, because of new life conditions, have become ridicu-_ 


*Chapter XIII. 
186 


DISCRIMINATION 187 


lous, while the large number which function smoothly and usefully are 
rarely mentioned. The content of a custom soon dies after it ceases to 
function. Custom may produce anti-social effects as a result of being 
definitely promoted by designing individuals or groups, and thus represent 
highly irrational behavior. Barring this type and that which naturally 
survives beyond its period of usefulness, custom is generally rational and 
accepted by the discriminating. 

Although a large amount of custom imitation is unconsciously rational, 
it is well that it be examined and critically reviewed from time to time. To 
the extent that it has evolved from the ripe experience of thoughtful per- 
sons and remains rational it deserves recognition. 


DISCRIMINATION AND CONVENTION IMITATION 


Convention imitation may be expected to be less rational than custom 
imitation, since it is behavior in the formal rather than the meaningful 
side of life. Conventions often gain expression in the semi-superficial 
phases of life where glamor or perfunctory respectability rule. But 
reputability is apt to cover a multitude of foolish forms of behavior; there 
is no guarantee that it possesses more than ephemeral merit. The chief 
justification of convention imitation is that it may give rigidity to soft and 
backbone to weak individual reactions in social life. It standardizes the 
reactions of human beings to one another, and smooths off rough indi- 
vidual edges. 


DISCRIMINATION AND CRISES 


It is in mental and social crises that established habits and customs are 
scrutinized. It is then that they are likely to fail and their possessors be 
jolted into an appreciation of their inadequacy. It is then that “a way 
out” is sought; if the old fails and a new way succeeds, the latter is apt to 
be recognized and substituted for the old. Crises shake people out of 
slavery to decayed customs and binding conventions—into adoption of 
new ideas and ways. Crises force comparisons and promote discrimina- 
tion. 

When social conditions change or when people move from one locality 
to another, then discrimination is stimulated. People are forced to make 
comparisons between the familiar and the new; comparative judgments 
lead to discrimination. When two procedures are forced under the micro- 
scope of discrimination, merits are compared, and the more rational has the 
greater chances of ultimate if not of current imitation. 


188 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





DISCRIMINATION AND SCSENCE 


Modern inductive science is the chief tool of discrimination. In science 
merit is the chief goal sought; merit is the god before which religion, 
politics, wealth must sooner or later bow. Science, following laboratory 
and inductive methods, begins unpretentiously ; it seeks to collect facts, not 
to create them; and to classify them, drawing from the classifications 
whatever conclusions possess accuracy, merit, and truth. Any asserted 
conclusion is at once subjected to criticism and experimentation in all the 
laboratories that are maintained in the given field and when it passes this 
crucible, it has proved itself worthy of rational imitation. The scientific 
method, in other words, is dedicated by its very nature, to the pursuit of 
truth. 

The laboratory method possesses greater merit than the text book proce- 


dure, despite the immature student’s conviction to the contrary. It forces | 


the individual to do his own examining, thinking, discriminating, whereas 
the latter method encourages the easy acceptance of the assertions of 
would-be authorities. The former is active and inquiring; the latter is 
passive and memorizing. Hence the question and answer method in the 
college classroom is to be rated high. The project method possesses even 
greater merit than the question and answer process, for it adds activity 
to mental inquiry; the socialized recitation? secures group participation 
and supplements inquiry and activity by socialized behavior. 


Science which has been perennially attacked by religion generally wins, — 
for its declarations are more accurately stated and more thoroughly veri- © 
fied before being advanced than are most religious statements. Religion is — 


often resentful, being composed to a considerable degree of feeling © 


reactions, whereas science flares up less, being impersonal and rationalistic. 


Whatever the errors in the use of scientific methods, such as an over- — 


emphasis at times upon what is material, tangible, upon what works 
mechanically, upon statistical measurements, upon the intellectual as 
distinguished from the feeling and willing phases of personality, upon the 


“known” rather than the “unknown,” scientific method itself is not to be © 


blamed. It has attacked the available as the best means of approaching — 


and understanding the intangible. -Science is not to be held responsible 


for want of symmetry in its development. Those who have used the 


results of science have often viewed data myopically and without broad 


*F. Stuart Chapin, “The Socialized Class Room,” Jour. of Applied Sociology, 


Vol. VI, No. 3, 1-13. 


DISCRIMINATION 189 


vision, and the critics of science have been quick to heap scorn upon it. 
Science with its accurate tools of analysis, discrimination, synthesis is 
upon the surest foundation known. 


OTHER TESTS OF DISCRIMINATION 


The attempts to rate human intelligence and thus to discriminate be- 
tween leaders is slowly gaining ground. The more accurate knowledge 
of this type that society possesses, the more discriminating will it become. 
Intelligence tests themselves, however, need to be used discriminatingly. 
The statement that intelligence is “the determining factor” in life and 
that its measurement at any age of the individual justifies a dogmatic 
estimate of a person’s native intelligence and hence of the mental level 
above which he cannot rise is rash.2 While giving full weight to the 
claims of intelligence tests we must regard them as measuring the social 
contacts and stimuli which a given individual has experienced, as well 
as inherited ability. In order to evaluate conduct rationally it is dan- 
gerous to rely wholly on intelligence testing; it is necessary to get at the 
feeling responses, the intensity of the various desires, the social attitudes 
and interests, and other activity traits as well, until a person’s behavior 
is diagnosed in all particulars. 

All persons above the moron type evidently possess undeveloped re- 
sources of mental ability, of imagination, of emotional drive, of inventive- 
ness, and of leadership traits. A democratic attitude gives ear to the 
findings of genetics and eugenics and yet holds no theory of racial arro- 
gance. It would not pack individuals away for life, on a series of shelves, 
but rather open gates of opportunity. It would not arrogate to itself 
finality and impose as a result of fifty-minute tests of “intelligence,” a 
shaming sense of inferiority. Intelligence tests being performance tests, 
are not inclusive of all personality traits. 

Social discrimination shows that many tests of conduct now being 
used are narrow, individualistic gauges, such as those held by the exploiter 
or the miser. Others are of a local, provincial type, like those of the 
“politician,” the corporation “interests,” a “social set,” or the family 
that relies for recognition on ancestral status. Other social standards 
exhibit national or racial limitations, as shown by patriotism, race pride. 
and race prejudice. 


*Cf. H. H. Goddard, Human Efficiency and Levels of Intelligence (Princeton 
Univ. Press, 1922). L. B. Terman, “The Great Conspiracy,” The New Republic, 
Dec. 27, 1922, 116-120. 


190 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


ice EET AVL a td ieee ICS NE AL MER 

When a person pronounces an idea or technique valuable his estimate 
is to be questioned until his scientific attitude of life is known. Pro- 
nouncements of values are to be rated high only when based on the widest 
knowledge coupled with ethical responsibility. 


DISCRIMINATION AND EDUCATION 


Education should make people more discriminating. Inasmuch as edu- 
cation disseminates improved methods of thinking and social techniques 
as well as facts, it makes for discrimination. Irrational education, on 
the other hand, permits “cultured” peoples to cling to superstitions, to hold 
to outworn theories, to hound the spokesman of scientific views. What 
passes for education and culture is often mere biased opinion that has 
been swallowed whole. Biases gain intellectual standing; a thousand 
mouths disseminate them until they acquire a Juggernaut momentum. 

Again, education is not always synonymous with discrimination because | 
of the mental habit of accepting prevailing ideas uncritically, usually owing 
to the authority of their source. The beliefs of parent, teacher, clergyman, 


senator are accepted without analysis. It is a protest against this habit — 


that J. H. Robinson has uttered so vigorously,* and which E. A. Ross 
has put picturesquely as “jumping into our beliefs with both feet and — 
standing there.” 


Then there is the general background of beliefs with which our group 


heritages color our thinking and even determine our biases. These regu- 
late what ideas shall be given a hearing, and since they have generally been 
accepted without much thinking, our educational growth may be anything © 


; 


| 


; 


but rational. The group heritage’ often controls educational systems — 


and particularly the preferences of those who direct educational policies. 


Ny 
' 


Education and scientific discrimination are at times wide apart because — 
of a shortsighted commercialism. ‘‘Practical” education is sought after, 


but the “practical” in education means those ideas which can be turned 
into dollars. Ideas which lead to service rather than profits are rated low 
among men engaged in a competitive commercial struggle. 

Education and truth go hand in hand only when the principles of science” 
and mutual service prevail in public opinion. Under these circumstances 
we find evolutionary principles of progress in control. The principle of 
authority is freely observed, but only when the representatives of authority 
behave in purely scientific and democratic ways, when they live not unto’ 


Ly 


*See The Mind in the Making (Harper, 1921). 


gers 


®See Graham Wallas, Our Social Heritage (Yale Univ. Press, 1921), Ch. IL ; 





DISCRIMINATION IQI 





themselves in a state of luxury, but as servants of the people. The prin- 
ciple of following authority, under the conditions just stated, indicates an 
important attitude to take in a life of vast complexity where science, litera- 
ture, and religion possess so many lines of activity that no one can 
keep abreast of the developments in more than one or two limited fields. 


DISCRIMINATION AND MODERN BUSINESS 


Pecuniary discrimination rules in business, for this field of human 
activity has been built up on the basis of calculation. Where there must 
be a regular accounting of all items handled, and where there is a com- 
petitive struggle for gains over losses, for profits in terms of dollars, then 
efficiency attains a high premium value and is feverishly sought. In busi- 
ness, merit is ever becoming commercialized; worth while ideas are 
“sold” ; and profits become the high priest who sits in judgment upon what 
is or is not meritorious. Pecuniary merit is often defied at the expense of 
personal character and social welfare. 

In modern industry, financial results again are imperious, putting a 
premium on the activity of laborers who produce the largest number of 
mechanical “parts’’ in the shortest space of time. Workmen who adopt a 
short-cut method displace those who maintain older and clumsy techniques. 
Consequently, the latest meritorious inventions revolutionize industrial 
processes. 

Scientific discrimination is often bowled over in industry, for that which 
dazzles in a country like ours where fashion is rated high is often preferred 
to a more quiet, substantial type of merit. He who can work well in 
making clothes cheaply, in manufacturing sparkling tinsel, in constructing 
roads that will soon need to be repaired is apt to be rated the most meri- 
torious. Robert Hunter has stated the idea well when he points out that 
the so-called meritorious uses of labor often became the wastes of labor, 
because employers insist that so much labor shall be put “upon cloth that 
goes the soonest into tatters, upon leather that tears and cracks, upon 
timber that is not well seasoned, upon roads that fall into immediate decay, 
upon motors that must be junked in a few years, upon houses that are 
jerry-built, and, in fact, upon nearly every article manufactured in quan- 
tity for the American public.”® 

That discrimination thus shortsightedly turned into a waste of labor 
is evidently to be charged first against a profit-system of industry and sec- 
ond, against a superficial, fashion-racing public. It is possible as for ex- 

*“Labor Once Lost,” Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 131, p. 73. 


192 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


Oreo WRC ARGO OD on 0 8 LOS 6 ee ci 
ample in England, commonly to put good labor upon valuable materials, 
instead of cancelling the values in the first item by the disutilities in the 
second, as is so frequently done in the United States." 


RATIONAL DISCRIMINATION 


Rational discrimination is both conservative and radical. There is no 
contradiction between being rational and holding fast “to the good old 
ways,” providing no other ideas or methods have demonstrated their 
superiority. The time tested things are more likely to have merit than the 
dazzling innovations of the hour. Old fashioned monogamy is in no 
serious competition with the latest “free love” theory ; and one need not 
blush to confess religion even in the presence of an arrogant agnostic. 

The rationalist may also be highly radical, for he is always ready to 
test the merits of new claimants in any field. He is not willing “to com- 
plete his education on any point.” Moreover, the rational imitator is 
radical in that he is willing to give up the “old” for the better “new,” 


to forsake the old dwelling with its attachments of sentiment for the — 
more commodious and better situated new home, and to give up an auto- 


cratic system of industry for a more democratic organization. 
These conservative and rational traits of discrimination involve no dual- 


ism of thinking, only a dualism in results. The thought attitude is single © 


and self-consistent, namely: open-minded inquiry regarding worth- 


whileness irrespective of date and prestige. 


The rational imitator is slavishly subject neither to the pronouncements 
of the Great Man nor to the whimsies of the Crowd.* He penetrates — 


prestige and mob-mindedness alike, seeking truth or worth, and governing 
his actions thereby. Hence he is apt to be no weakling. Although an_ 
imitator and a follower, he is not putty but a discriminating human being. - 


The rational imitator discriminates between imitating and leading; he 


leads when he may; in other particulars he becomes an imitator, bowing 


to authority, but only after rigorously applying scientific tests. In so. 


doing, he often requires not one whit less courage than when he is an 


actual leader. The rational imitator may occasionally be obliged to dis-— 


play heroic qualities. 


SOCIO-RATIONAL DISCRIMINATION 


A natural outgrowth of rational discrimination is socio-rational discrim- 


ination. The distinction is one of degree in application of human welfare 


" Ibid., p. 74. 
®E, A. Ross, Social Psychology (Macmillan, 1908), p. 286. 


DISCRIMINATION 193 


standards. To ordinary rationality sociality is added. The rational dis- 
criminator who develops a full measure of ethical responsibility, including 
a sense of obligation to all human beings and all human groups, becomes 
socio-rational. Rational imitation usually refers to personal conduct 
conducive to the advancement of self or one’s group; but socio-rational 
conduct takes into consideration the welfare of competitors and competing 
groups. It is all-inclusive in its ethical and social import. 

It has been common to use individual efficiency tests rather than socio- 
rational criteria in the business world. To crush out small competitors 
has been accounted just. To call a strike at a critical hour in industrial] 
production and especially in public utilities has been considered efficient 
by labor leaders, but in so doing they have not recognized socio-rational 
standards, that is, have not thought first of welfare of the public and of 
the employer as well as of labor. 

Strength of character and efficiency are terms that connote rational 
methods of living and working, but both may be used anti-socially. 
Psychological efficiency ranks high, but practically it often results in 
turning men into automatic machines. Strength of character is no guar- 
antee of socialized action. Villains and criminals often possess great 
strength of character, which they use against their fellow-men. Socio- 
rational discrimination adds the standard of social welfare to that of 
psychological efficiency. 

Socio-rational discrimination leads to the highest forms of imitation 
and suggestion. In the past rational conduct has been thought of chiefly 
in terms of individual happiness and welfare. This idea always had 
staunch support in hedonism, Epicureanism, and related theories.° Then, 
rational conduct was given a larger meaning, even in early Chinese, 
Hebrew, and similar philosophies, as well as in the teachings of Plato, 
Aristotle, and of early Christianity, and included individual action be- 
fitting the welfare of small groups, such as one’s family group, the occu- 
pational group, the local club or fraternal organization. It is still con- 
sidered rational to enact tariff legislation which will benefit a relatively 
small number of individuals as much as possible and enable them to 
charge the mass of consumers in their own country more than they sell 


| the same goods for (even at a fair profit) in a foreign country. There 


| 


} 
| 





are those to-day who consider it rational to profit by “log-rolling,” by 
undermining or defying law, by promoting class hatred. 
The concept of rational conduct needs to be expanded so that the acts 


°Cf. the writer’s History of Social Thought (Univ. of Southern California Press, 
1922), pp. I1I, 112; also Ch, XI. 


194 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


UO ered 78 ee eee eee a ee a ae eee 


of the individual and of the group will be habitually measured not simply 
by local or selfish ends but by humanity standards.° Even nations still 
act along paths that are nationally selfish and call such action rational ; 
they have not yet worked gut standards that will stand the test of what 
the writer has elsewhere called a world community spirit.‘t A socio- 
rational pronouncement was made by the United States when, through 
her President, she declared that she had no selfish national ends to gain, 
that she desired no conquest, no dominion, that she is but one of the 
champions of the rights of mankind.’? 

Socio-rational discrimination involves a broad-visioned analysis of 
human life but especially socialized habit formation.‘* By the continual 
setting of socialized examples of acting and talking, in the home, school, 
and other primary groups, a mutual service atmosphere can be created 
which in turn will stimulate all who breathe it to respond to every situa- 
tion primarily and habitually from the standpoint of what are its social 


welfare values, and only secondarily from the viewpoint of “how much 


can I get out of it.” 

The difficulties in the way of arriving at rationa! social standards are 
almost insuperable. When the necessary knowledge is scanty, scientific 
techniques not developed, and experts in the subject disagree, it is no 


small wonder that the common man is lost unless he takes refuge in — 


authority. Until standards of social values become more scientific a high 
level of discrimination cannot be expected on the part of persons gen- 
erally. The call for a broad-visioned development of social standards, 
together with their wholesale dissemination was never greater than now. 


PRINCIPLES 


1. The anomalies in and failures of fashion, custom, and convention 
imitation lead to discrimination. 


2. Fashion imitation requires scientific scrutiny because of its emphasis 


on mere novelty and fashion racing; custom imitation, because it 
tends to persist after usefulness has ended; and convention imi- 
tation, because it unduly stresses forms. 


* A pointed analysis of the rdle of standards in human conduct is given by 
E. A. Ross, Principles of Sociology (Century, 1920), Ch. XLVII; also see Cooley, 
Social Process (Scribners, 1918), Ch. XXXII. 

“The World as a Group Concept,” Jour. of Applied Sociology, VII; 31-38. 

“ Address to Congress by President Wilson, April 2, 1917. 

*John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct (Holt, 1922), pp. 75-83; also cf. 
Ch. IV of this book. 


DISCRIMINATION 195 


. Crises “show up” the weaknesses of current and established ways 


of life. 


. The scientific method is the chief tool of discrimination. 


Education may whet or dull people’s discrimination, according to 
the attitudes and values it promotes. 


. Discrimination in modern business and industry is apt to be unscien- 


tific because they are guided by pecuniary standards. 


. Rational discrimination is conservative in that it “holds fast to the 


good ;” and radical, in that it is willing to experiment. 
Socio-rational discrimination supplements “rational” inquiry by 
human welfare standards. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. What are the main weaknesses of the ordinary text-book method ? 
. Is it rational to follow authority ? 


In what ways are the standards of science and religion different? 


. Give a new illustration of the statement that rational imitation is 


conservative. 


. Illustrate: rational imitation is radical. 


Illustrate: To be rational often requires courage. 

Explain: “Most of us jump into our beliefs with both feet and stand 
there.”’ 

Why does education often fail to produce rational behavior? 

Illustrate the difference between rational and socio-rational imitation. 


PROBLEMS 


. Why are problems attached to each of the chapters of this book? 

. In what sense ate these problems the best part of the book? 

. Indicate a rational way of “ascertaining woman’s sphere.” 

. Is it rational for a religious leader to require his followers “to re- 


nounce the extravagances of fashion and to dress simply?” 


. Why should the study of hygiene, psychology, and sociology help one 


to become “crank-proof ?” 


. Why do Americans who eat raw oysters criticize the Japanese for 


eating uncooked fish? 


. Why do American women criticize Chinese women for compressing 


their feet longitudinally when they themselves try “to escape the 
stigma of having normal feet” by “a formidable degree of lateral 
compression ?” 


196 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


Se en ee ee 


8. Why do we ridicule the customs and beliefs of other peoples while 
we remain oblivious to the weaknesses of our own customs and 
fashions ? 

9. What effect does knowledge of the customs and beliefs of other 
peoples have upon your own customs and beliefs? 

10. If you are trying to induce “Jews and Christians, Orangemen and 
Catholics, Germans and Slavs, Poles and Lithuanians” to sink their 
enmities, how would you proceed? 3 

11. Who has the wider outlook and the freer mind, “the average teacher 
or the average parent?” 

12. Illustrate: “One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain 
of a new idea.” 

13. If everybody should become a rational imitator, would progress cease 
because of the lack of people to try strange and peculiar ideas ? 

14. Why in this enlightened country are so many fashions irrational ? 


15. Why have we only recently begun to talk about socio-rational dis- 


crimination ? 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Cooley, C. H., Social Process (Scribners, 1918), Ch. XXXII. 

Dewey, John, Human Nature and Conduct (Holt, 1922), pp. 75-83. 

Howard, G. E., Social Psychology (syllabus, University of Nebraska, 
IOTO), Secta XLV 

McCall, W. A., How to Measure in Education (Macmillan, 1922), Chs. Ly 
VIL. 

Ross. E. A., Social Psychology (Macmillan, 1908), Ch. XVI. 

Principles of Sociology (Century, 1920), Ch. XLVII. 








CHAPTER XVII 
DISCUSSION 


ATIONAL discussion is a culminating phase of intersocial stimula- 

tion, for it brings opposing attitudes, beliefs, and considerations 
into full comparison. It leads to mutuality, that is, to an understanding 
of the other fellow’s attitudes before arriving at one’s own. It surpasses 
all else in stimulating thought and mental growth; it gives “a premium 
to intelligence ;” it affords a refined satisfaction to the desires for social 
response and achievement. 

Discussion at its best is also the highest form of conflict. It takes into 
consideration all sides of the question under dispute; it is dispassionate; 
it is impersonal; and it measures fact against fact. It reduces prejudice 
and mere opinion to a minimum and magnifies ascertainable truth. It 
furthers the settlement of conflicts on the basis of what the facts show, 
and of what fair-minded people can agree upon. 


UNSCIENTIFIC DISCUSSION 


The importance of discussion as a form of intersocial stimulation has 
not been appreciated, for discussion is so generally unscientific. Even 
today most discussion rests on hearsay evidence; it involves opinion 
rather than fact. The tendency to communicate, to share with others 
what one hears, is so great that habits of speaking before investigating, 
even regarding fundamental matters, are the rule. Very few receive 
training, even in educational institutions, concerning the differences be- 
tween fact and opinion. The law student is an exception, for he is not 
allowed to proceed far until he distinguishes between “what is” and what 
he “thinks is so.” It is only by this method that discussion can attain its 
rightful place at the head of conflict processes. 

Ignorance is often the cause of unscientific discussion, but ignorance 
which thinks itself enlightened is unusually dangerous. Moreover, a 


little learning, or just enough to give its possessor the feeling that he is 
fully competent, makes him dogmatic, and impossible to reason with. 


: 
| 


| 
| 
: 


The primary test of worth-while discussion is the degree to which it~ 


*One of the best chapters on “Discussion” is by E. A. Ross, Social Psychology 
(Macmillan, 1908), Ch. XVIII. 


197 


198 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
oF OI ee ee 


is free from prejudice and bias, for these factors easily lead to misrep- 
resentation, and rush a mental conflict down hill into physical combat. 
/ Prejudice easily controls a person's thinking without his being aware 
at the time of its presence: Its major role was observed by Francis 
Bacon, whose dissertation on the idols of the tribe, the theater, the forum, 
and the cave has pointed the way whereby a person might be freed 
from control by dogma and superstition.” Bacon found the origins of 
prejudice partly in anthropomorphic judgments, i.e., in judgments which 
one makes because he looks upon life and the world through human eyes 
and is able to.think of matters outside human life only in human terms. 
He found other sources of bias in traditional systems of thought, such 
as a religious system, agnosticism, Epicureanism, communism, Mormonism 
or any other system which may envelop a whole people and control all 
parental and educational training.~ Words and language are often capable 
of a varied interpretation. They are used habitually in one way by one 


person, but differently by another, and hence false interpretations with — 


consequent prejudices are generated.” Every person has peculiar expe- — 


riences, in fact, he never experiences life just as other persons do, and 
thus he develops individualistic and exceptional reactions to and biases 
regarding life. Bacon’s injunctions have been summarized as—follows : 
Get as little of yourself and of other selves as possible tn the way of 
the thing which you wish.to.see. In general it may be said that Bacon’s 


analysis of human pre-dispositions is sound; the pre-judgments of life — 


vitally color every discussion. 


Prejudice is “a hasty judgment or an opinion formed without due ex- — 


amination.” ® In the absence of facts, our desires furnish substitute 
data. On this unscientifiic basis persons engage in daily discussion, being 
caught frequently in making “outlandish” statements. 


The part that false assumptions play in discussion has nowhere been 


presented more effectively than in Frazer's Golden Bough,* wherein in — 
volume after volume the author marshals innumerable illustrations so ~ 


effectively that the reader soon begins to wonder whether primitive man 


was able to receive any sound beliefs from his contacts with his fellows. 


For the development of these false suppositions the religion of primitive — 


man must bear much of the responsibility, although the medicine man, as 


distinguished from the priest, with his devotion to magic was a powerful 


7A. K. Rogers, A Student’s History of Philosophy (Macmillan, 1908) p. 238. 


*W. F. Ogburn, “Bias, Psychoanalysis, and the Subjective in Relation to the — 


Social Sciences,” Proceedings of the American Sociological Society, XVII: 62-74. 
“a convenience the reader may consult the single volume edition (Macmillan, 
1922). 


DISCUSSION 199 


factor. Primitive superstitions still exist but the prevailing types of 
prejudice to-day are frequently as subtle to the educated person as 
early superstition was to the unlearned man of the wilds. Mythology 
passes away when civilization develops but is supplanted by logically or- 
ganized systems of false beliefs. 

Gossip is a prevailing type of intersocial stimulation; it is also one of 
the most dangerous types of discussion in its least worth while form, 
for it cares little for the truth. It delights in any “juicy bit” of news, 
and thrives on the pathological and spectacular in human interaction. It 
picks up a falsehood and without the slightest hesitation throws it out on 
the four winds, or as a Japanese proverb goes: “If one dog barks a false- 
hood, ten thousand others spread it as truth.” 

Gossip is a social factor that gives prestige or destroys personal reputa- 
tions; it is not much concerned with general results or hypotheses. It is 
no respecter of personal sensitiveness, feelings, or of mitigating circum- 
stances. It is ruthless; by insinuation it may defeat the best of men. A 
current of gossip surreptitiously started by an unscrupulous politician can 
defeat a worthy candidate for office. In fact it is the venom of gossip 
which unfortunately prevents public-minded men from seeking public 
office. “The tongue,” states another Japanese proverb, “is but three 
inches long, but it can kill a man six feet high.” 

Gossip assumes the air of secrecy. It delights in being “confidential,” 
and thus succeeds in flattering the one who hears, and hence leads him 
to exaggerate the importance of what he has heard. With mystery and 
magical performance as chief aids, gossip rules the world of unthinking 
or careless thinking men and women. 

Gossip is usually negative or damaging rather than constructive and 
helpful, being inspired by envy and jealousy; jealousy hinders the spread- 
ing of good tidings about persons, especially opponents, but gives a thou- 
sand wings to any injurious report. Newspapers of the “yellow” type 
especially are serious offenders, for they “play up” anything that smacks 
of scandal; they escape responsibility by saying, “it is alleged.” The 
public not only fails usually to notice the “alleged” but is deluded by the 
indirect suggestion that an allegation carries. 

Talk, or ordinary conversation, which is the common vehicle of dis- 
cussion, is largely devoted to the trivial, the passing, the narrowly personal, 
and the insignificant. At times it reaches crescendoes of heated argument 
and then it may take the form of serious discussion about matters of life, 
death, and eternity. Of all forms of discussion, talk is the most im- 
portant, because of its universality and the ease with which it occurs, 


200 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


i 


“We may rail at ‘mere talk’ as much as we please, but the probability 
is that the affairs of nations and of men will be more and more regu- 
lated by talk.” ® It is estimated that at least one-half of all talk is wasted 
and yet, on the other hand, it is contended by Godkin that “no one ever 
talks freely about anything without contributing something, let it be ever 
so little, to the unseen forces which carry the race on to its final destiny,” ° 
for one may counteract or modify some current belief or make a positive 
impression, setting in motion a train of ideas definitely contributing to 
human progress. 


SCIENTIFIC DISCUSSION 


At a research society meeting a few evenings ago, a member reported 
on a paper advancing new ideas in social psychology. At the conclusion 
these were challenged by several members of the group and the leader 
defended his thesis. At the conclusion he admitted certain weaknesses 


in his position but declared that he had been stimulated in several new” 


directions that all his previous research and study had not suggested. 
Here is a tangible and not uncommon result of secondary opposition. If 
the leader’s thought is too far advanced or his point of view very much 


broader than that of his associates, he will make no impression on them, — 


and they will not be able successfully to challenge him. 


PARTISAN DISCUSSION 


Discussion tends to be partisan. A person in conversation with another 
finds himself presenting or defending one side of a question. This parti- 
sanship is inevitable and good, providing the partisan continually keeps 
in mind and understands the attitudes and biases of his opponent. When 
he becomes partisan to the point of being unable to appreciate the attitudes 


of those who disagree, or when he assumes a narrowly emotional attitude, - 


he is apt to do his cause more harm than good. It is our desires and 
wishes that are particularly responsible for leading us into partisanship 
of the worst sorts.’ 


Salesmanship is today a leading form of partisan discussion. The sales- 


man, anxious to prosper, may resort to the subtlest form of suggestion 
in order to conceal the weaknesses of the product that he is handling and 


to make its strong points so attractive that he may clinch a sale at once 


*E. L. Godkin, Problems of Modern Democracy (Scribners, 1896), p. 221. 
*Tbid., p. 224. 
"W. F. Ogburn, op. cit., p. 66. 


| 


DISCUSSION 201 


before the prospect’s newly aroused and glowing interest has given away 
to a cool analysis. 

Legal battles represent highly skilled partisan discussion. Lawyers 
trained in argument before a jury utilize all the arts of direct and in- 
direct suggestion “to put up” a good case for the client, or to riddle an 
alleged good case of the opposition. Before these two sets of pyrotech- 
nical argument, the sober elements of a thoughtful discussion often dis- 
appear entirely and the jury is left muddled and uncertain. 

College debates are training courses in quick witted discussion. Ar- 
guments are built up to make the respective sides of the question appear 
as strong as possible, and then through the rebuttals, are quickly shat- 
tered. Opinion is met by retort and authorities are challenged until only 
experienced and capable “judges” can follow the real threads of discus- 
sion. The desire for victory easily paralyzes the desire to get at the truth 
of an important issue. 

In political campaigning the most vehement forms of partisan discussion 
find expression. All the wiles of clever public speakers with their uses 
of indirect suggestion and appeals to crowd psychology are called into 
action. Partisan speakers address partisan audiences with the result 
that real discussion is submerged beneath a flood of oratorical appeal to 
political party prejudices. At a recent political meeting held in Los 
Angeles the three thousand “vice-presidents” present shouted themselves 
hoarse in behalf of the favorite candidate. At a political meeting in 
Kansas City recently four bands bellowed forth and a thousand flags 
were waved frantically at a climatic point of the speech that was being 
made by the “orator” of the occasion. Systematic “heckling” and other 
negative devices also impede the operation of free discussion methods. 

Theological discussion often becomes a pitting of dogmatic statement 
against dogmatic statement. When scientific truth is advanced, acri- 
moniousness increases and sometimes ends in heresy trials and bitter 
persecution. The debates which have raged about evolution and religion, 
the Virgin Birth, the liberal interpretation of the Bible, baptism, hell-fire 
doctrines, and so forth, are among the least fruitful forms of discus- 
sion. Nowhere have feelings and prejudice so balked the quest for truth. 


MENTAL DUELS 


Two ideas, or institutions, or systems of technique may, in Tarde’s 


words, engage in a mental duel, for example, the duels between Chris- 


tianity and heathenism, and between Protestant Christianity and Catholic 


202 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


a —— 


Christianity, between aristocracy and democracy, between steamships and 
sailing vessels, between high tariff and low tariff, or between though 
and tho, and between the Victrola and the Edison talking machines. 

The mental duel ends in*one of two ways.® One idea meets another 
and annihilates it. In the minds of thinking people, the idea of a round 
earth has completely superseded the idea of a flat earth. The annihilation 
may take place slowly, through discussion, or suddenly by resort to arbi- 
trary means, such as war, governmental edict, or personal fiat. The 
tractor is slowly triumphing over the farm horse, while for those who 
understand, the discovery of the tubercle bacillus ended suddenly all 
previous conceptions of the cause of tuberculosis. The contest between 
voluntary and compulsory military service was settled suddenly in the 
United States in 1917 by Congressional action. 

(2) The mental duel may end in compromise. The stronger elements 
on both sides may combine to form a new combination. The languages 


of the Saxons and the Angles came into contact with the languages of — 


the Celts, Latins, and Greeks, and the result was a new, composite 
vehicle of speech. Words themselves are often combinations of inher- 
ently antagonistic roots, or of roots from different languages. Coal min- 
ers compete for earnings with coal barons, and the result is generally a 


compromise. As the orbit of the earth represents an equilibrium between — 


centripetal and centrifugal forces, so our democracy is a compromise in 
the duel between anarchism and communism. A business college is a 
compromise between actual business experience and a liberal arts educa- 
tion. The covenant for a League or an Association of Nations is normally 
a series of compromises between conflicting national interests. 

In both types of duels the conflicts are between new inventions and a 


series of old, established ones. If the differences are very great, the — 


impact is likely to be catastrophic to one or the other or to both con- 


testants; but if the differences are not basic the conflict may be expected 


to end in compromise adjustments. The first is known as primary and 
the other as secondary. 


OPPOSITION TO DISCUSSION 


Losing or weak causes oppose discussion,® for if they did not do so 
their tenure would be doomed. Intimidation and calumny are used to — 
head off discussion; weak causes at bay will resort to any vicious action | 


» Larde gives a three-fold classification. 
E, A. Ross, Social Psychology, p. 307. 


eet rete 


DISCUSSION eee 


in order to forestall discussion. Leaders who insist on stirring up em- 
barrassing discussion are mobbed, exiled, or even killed. 

Custom control often precludes discussion. Autocracy cuts off dis- 
cussion, for it does not want its weak points brought to light. The dis- 
closure of weaknesses by discussion brings about a damaging loss in pres- 
tige. Custom pronounces some subjects too “sacred” for discussion and 
thus maintains its control. 

The history of the human race could be written in terms of the strug- 
gles to secure freedom of discussion. Public speech and the press are 
results of gains made against the silence imposed by autocratic custom. 
Political democracy has been won against powerful odds which have been 

enthroned in custom control. Political, religious, and industrial autocrats 
in the name of “God,” “patriotism,” ‘“‘sacredness of social institutions,” 
still throttle freedom of discussion wherever possible as a means of main- 
taining their own forms of customary control. Conscientious objectors 
are kept in prisons long after the procedure against which they “objected” 
has ceased to exist. Custom fears discussion lest its weaknesses be dis- 
closed and its standing undermined. When discussion prevails customs 
must submit to surgery and rejuvenation in order to meet new social con- 
ditions. Discussion thus is a major factor in securing change and 
progress. 

The number of “open subjects” with which discussion began histori- 

cally must have been small. The fight against discussion still continues, 
for nothing equals it in dispelling the mystery and autocracy of cus- 
tomary control. Deliberation is at first “profane,” for it seems to be 
ruthless in its inroads upon privileged beliefs. It is permitted first with 
reference to the most visible and tangible matters, for these by their 
nature cannot be kept under customary control after people begin to 
think for themselves. Discussion then spreads to the less observable 
phases of life, and then beneficiaries of special customary privilege resort 
to misrepresentation and intimidation. 
_ Under autocracy no political parties and no public discussion of the 
_ government is permitted; under democracy discussion of governmental 
policies is free, and political parties develop as important factors in gov- 
ernment. In international affairs President Wilson was sneered at, and 
finally overcome in the making of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, when 
he pled for “open agreements openly arrived at.” His hands at Paris 
were tied because the United States had entered the war in 1917, subject 
to all the secret treaties and agreements which had been made. 





| 
| 
| 


204. FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


AGENCIES OF DISCUSSION 


Platform and pulpit discourses provide bases for discussion; they are 
effective in arousing the feelings and in stimulating people to the need 
of social change. The audience must be addressed with images, that is, 
with appeals to the imagination, rather than with too many facts and with 
reasoning based on these facts. The greatest truths of science and religion 
can be put into popular language and brought to the attention of the 
masses in groups, although the discussion is often wanting, for the 
responses may be confined to applause, hisses, or personal comments. 
The assembly as distinguished from the crowd gives more thoughtful 
attention to the speaker as he leads in a serious discussion.*® 

The classroom group and the discussion group are among the most 
important discussion agencies. In them there is democratic participation 
under the guidance of thoughtful, sympathetic, and patient leadership. 
By the question and answer method mind clashes with mind to the stim-- 
ulation of both, and in the socialized classroom ** there is afforded the 
maximum amount of discussion with a maximum amount of leadership 
training. The open forum is a successful attempt to utilize the discus- 
sion group principle in assembly and other large-scale meetings. Only — 
questions are entertained from the floor and these are repeated distinctly 
before being answered by the leader.” 

Law courts, boards of arbitration, wage boards, and similar groups are © 
among the most practical illustrations of how discussion may supplant ~ 
physical conflict. In good faith the representatives of opposing interests 
may speak face to face, questioning one another, and obtaining each 
other’s points of view and the reasons therefor ; they may have experts 
present facts for their joint consideration, and so may come to agreement Q 
by peaceful means. Sometimes neither side is “won over,’ and the 
chairman is obliged to cast the deciding vote, but at other times the 
presentation of incontrovertible facts may result in a unanimous agree- 
ment, thus transforming mental conflict into progress. 

In the press discussion is extensively carried on, but usually from the 
standpoint of special interests, such as those of the newspaper owner 
and of large-scale advertisers. The owner’s bias usually takes a partisan 

wee the Chapter on “Crowds and Mobs.” 

F. S. Chapin, “The Socialized Classroom,” Jour. of Applied Soctology, Feb- | 
ruary, 1922, pp. I-13. | 

™Cf.G. W. Coleman, Democracy in the Making (1915). 


_ *It is this type of discussion procedure that Miss Follett emphasizes strongly. 
in The New State (Longmans, Green: 1918). 


DISCUSSION 205 


form, although at heart it is economic, i. e., a catering to advertisers. 
Occasionally in parallel columns ‘4 or in successive issues we find the 
opposing sides of a live subject being presented to the public for evalua- 
tion. The Literary Digest has long followed the method of presenting 
editorial opinions on both sides of the main topics that engage the public’s 
attention. For sampling opinions this method is good, although as a 
survey of the facts regarding the problems involved its weakness is 
apparent. 

In magazines of the semi-scientific nature and the journals of the 
scientific type are found the best printed vehicles of discussion. In books 
also the various phases of a given theme are presented so that the reader 

may in effect carry on a discussion with the author and arrive at a new 
and better judgment. Discussion in other words need not be vocal and 
between persons in the presence of each other. Discussion is being 
greatly promoted by the rapid development in means of communication. 

The shift from oral discussion to “discussion conducted in print” or 
by radio represents expansion, but also a certain loss in sharp, intensive 
stimulation. The modern neglect of the dialectic art which is deplored 
by Graham Wallas*® is partly due to an increased speeding up of the 
life-pace, partly to the emphasis on material gain, and partly to the in- 
creased size and complexity of modern society. One of the leading ways 
to discover new truth is in discussion with a few kindred spirits where 
one’s mind leaps and mounts high.1* Equal even to the class lectures 
which I attended as a graduate student were those hour discussions held 
daily by a small group of students who were doing graduate work in 
different social science fields. It was there that the strong and weak 
points of the lectures that had been attended were brought out and our 
own thinking greatly stimulated and clarified. 

An unfortunate but inevitable tendency against which every discussion 
must guard itself is to allow one person to dominate, with the others 
nodding assent rather than a free exchange of ideas being evoked.17 It 

is a similar tendency which Mr. Wallas describes when he states that of 
three thousand committee meetings which he had attended “at least half 
of the men and women with whom I sat were entirely unaware that any 
conscious mental effort on their part was called for.”*® One of the best 


*As in the municipal newspaper that was attempted in Los Angeles some 
years ago. 
_ “The Great Society (Macmillan, 1914), p. 243. 
R.A. Ross, Principles of Sociology (Century, 1920), p. 290. 
| *™ See the section on “Conservation” in Chapter V. 
* The Great Society, p. 276. 





206 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


ee ee 


methods to make a discussion group efficient is to have its work planned 
beforehand by the chairman in the sense of asking each member to be 
responsible for ascertaining and presenting facts relative to some phase 
of the subject to be discussed. The chairman thus has a large respon- 
sibility not in doing all the work but in getting the group members to 
assume responsibility before the group meets, in stimulating their desires 
to achieve. | 
DEMOCRACY AND DISCUSSION 

Discussion is democratizing, for it brings out all points of view and 
secures extended participation. In a labor union meeting, men learn to 
speak for or against a proposition, vote on it, and to abide by the results, 
thus giving them about the only first hand lessons in democracy which 
they receive. In a socialized recitation, some member of the class leads 
the discussion, and not the teacher, who takes part only to correct errors 
or make new suggestions. In a community council meeting the people, 
the ordinary neighborhood folk, participate in and direct the discussions,.. 
and thus experience a new sense of community and democratic conscious- | 
ness. These examples of securing progress by democratic discussion © 
rather than by the dicta of leaders illustrate a great difficulty, namely, 
that time is often wasted. In hours of group crisis discussion is often — 
too slow a method, but in ordinary times the loss of time is more than | 
offset by the “we” feeling engendered. Everyone who in good faith 
participates in a discussion feels the results obtained to be his and develops — 
a sense of group responsibility. 

Discussion “prevents hasty action,” and secures thoughtful considera- ; 
tion on the part of a large percentage of the group. W. R. George tells” 
how the boys at the “Republic” in Freeville, New York, while under the 
impulses of the moment once passed an eight-hour-day law and went 
fishing, but upon return found that the girls at the Republic had taken” 
advantage of the new law, locked the kitchen, and gone on a picnic. But 
the boys, however, before going to bed hungry and supperless that night 
rescinded the eight hour law and passed another to the effect that there- 
after no bill would be voted upon until it had been posted and discussed 
for three days. In this way discussion was provided for as a protection 
against both impulsive leadership and crowd emotion."° | 

Fashion control opens all the doors of discussion. Anything that is 
new is entitled to a hearing. If the flood gates are suddenly lowered 
then a surplus of talk is registered. E. A. Ross tells how he found the 

“Junior Republic (Appleton, 1909), p. 229. 


DISCUSSION 207 





Russians in 1917 after the overthrow of the repression policy gathering 
everywhere and all talking at once. “At the height of some ardent dis- 
cussion the din becomes deafening, several pouring forth a torrent of 
argument, expostulation, or remonstrance, and no one able to follow the 
speech of any other.”?° 

Under a fashion régime there is much idle talk, many useless “gab- 
fests,” and widespread airing of personal whims. As a rule it is better 
to allow a disgruntled member of society to hold a meeting and talk 
himself out. Such procedure will do no harm if the conditions railed 
against are in reality sound. If social conditions are deplorable then the 
unchecked agitator may stir up a movement which will destroy the 
good along with the bad. Too much talk hinders progress. A campaign, 
said Macaulay, cannot be directed by a debating society. 

The only way to secure democratic and scientific discussion is to 
train people from childhood to discriminate between fact, opinion, and 
prejudice. The only way to determine facts is not through the experiences 
of one person, but of several, and by the observations and analyses of 
trained thinkers. Every person of course may make limited investigations 
of his own, and become an authority in at least one or more circumscribed 
fields, although for the most part he will need to rely on authorities and 
his ability to discriminate between authorities and pretenders. 

By developing social responsibility in persons discussion is vital to 
‘socialization. It secures an exchange of views, melts prejudices, and 
leads to tolerance, compromise, and accommodation. By the communi- 
cation of truth, mutual understanding is achieved, common feeling is en- 
gendered, similarities in mental reactions are created, and wholesome co- 
Operation is insured. It is only by democratic and socio-rational discussion 
that destructive conflicts may be avoided and socialization made possible. 


PRINCIPLES 


1. Discussion is the most important form of intersocial stimulation. 

2. The chief enemies of discussion are prejudice, ignorance, and dog- 
matic authority. 

3. Gossip as a common form of discussion covets secrecy and repeats 
the cheapest hearsay. 

4. The discussion group where each comes prepared to contribute new 

’ ideas is a superior agency of intersocial stimulation. 


* Russia in Upheaval (Century, 1918), p. 189. 





208 


See ee 


5. With growth in communication, discussion extends its scope but 


COON 


Hs 
Ww WN 


_ Partisan discussions include such forms of intersocial stimulation as 


. Weak or losing causes shun discussion. 
_ The rise of democracy involves a struggle for freedom of discussion. 
. Discussion deepens a person’s sense of ethical responsibility and 


. Why is discussion the highest expression of intersocial stimulation? — 
. In what way is discussion the worthiest form of conflict? 
. Why does prejudice cut down the efficiency of discussion ? 
. What types of prejudice did Bacon warn against? 


. Why is legal training valuable as a basis for sound discussion? 
. What is gossip? 

. What are the weaknesses of gossip? 

. What do people talk about most of the time? 

. What are the weaknesses of partisan discussion ? 

. Under what circumstances is discussion shut off ? 

. What is the relation of discussion to democracy ? 

. How does discussion prevent hasty action? 

14. 


= ee 
HOD ON ANAWDND H 


. Why is discussion able “to hurry conflicts to a conclusion” ? 

. What are the leading foes of new ideas? 

. Under what conditions is discussion profitless ? 

. Why is truth or wisdom often lacking in the assertions of either 


. Why did Bacon dwell so extensively on “idols”? 
. Why is there so much gossip? 
. Why does gossip usually center on personalities rather than on 


. Why does gossip generally assume an air of secrecy? 
. How is talk an aid to progress? 








FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





diminishes its intensity. 


salesmanship, legal battles, college debates, political campaigns, the- 
ological polemics. 


furthers socialization. 






REVIEW QUESTIONS 


When is discussion unscientific ? 


What is the connection between discussion and socialization? 


PROBLEMS 


extremist in a given discussion? 


principles ? 





DISCUSSION 209 





10. Why are several discussion groups apt to be more effective than a 
mass meeting? 

11. When is discussion most opposed? 

12. Why has mankind had to fight so continually for freedom of dis- 
cussion ? 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Bagehot, W., Physics and Politics (Appleton, 1873), Ch. V. 

Carver, T. N., Sociology and Social Progress (Ginn, 1906), Chs. XXI, 
XXXII. 

Ross, E. A., Social Psychology (Macmillan, 1908), Ch. XVIII. 

—Principles of Sociology (Century, 1920), pp. 288-299. 

Tarde, Gabriel, Social Laws (Macmillan, 1907), pp. 125-132. 

Wallas, Graham, The Great Society (Macmillan, 1914), pp. 243-286. 





CHAPTER XVIII 
ACCOMMODATION 


CCOMMODATION is an adjustment of habit to new ideas and — 
procedures. The process originates in passive adaptation,t which — 
may be traced back through plant and animal life. Lower forms of life 
are slowly made over to meet environmental conditions. The en- ] 
vironment may stimulate the growth of certain characteristics, and 
hinder the development of other traits, that is “select” certain traits 
and crush out others. Plants, animals, human beings, and social groups 
that cannot change as fast as the physical or mental stimuli would demand | 
become extinct, hence, the need for passive adaptation.? . 
In mental interaction there is a large amount of passive adaptation 
The docile child responds to parental and school suggestion, and the i 
servile hanger-on or the “hired servant’ in modern politics jumps to do ; 
the bidding of his master. The world is full of blind imitators, following 
light-footedly in the steps of prestige. Unearned leadership often rests” 
on a clientele of passive adapters, whose fickleness is often their weak- 
ness and whose spinelessness leads them hither and yon after the false 
gods of the hour. A charlatan with almost any quack remedy or mys- r 
terious patter may easily gain a following of dupes. 
Transmutations is the term used by E. A. Ross to indicate a phase” 
of passive adaptation, or in his words, “unwilled social changes. The 
speech of our ancestors underwent the unnoticed sound-shiftings recor 
in Grimm’s law. Refracted through generations of scribes, pictographs 
shrivel into conventional ideographic characters. Coins minted first as” 
tiny spades or knives dwindle into unrecognizable shapes.” ® 
ACTIVE ADAPTATION ; 
Active adaptation originates in an advanced phase of passive adjust- 
ment. In the earliest stages of forethought man has anticipated changes 
in environment and prepared for them, withstood their shock, forestalled 


*F. M. Bristol, Social Adaptation (Harvard Univ. Press, 1915), p. 55. f 
* This idea has been extensively developed by anthropo-geographers, such as Ells-_ 
worth Huntington in his Civilization and Climate (Yale Univ. Press, 1915); Ellen” 
Semple’s Influence~ of Geographic Environment (Holt, 1911), is an encyclopedia of. 
illustrations of passive adaptation. 4 
* Principles of Sociology (Century, 1920), p. 526. 


J 
210 Y 


) 
| 


oe 


é 


rn > 


ACCOMMODATION 211 


some entirely, and deliberately created others. In this way he has passed 
from helpless to active adaptation; the center of influence has shifted 
from environment to himself. Instead of being made over by environ- 
ment he has risen to levels of mastery. Active adaptation was represented 
by aggressive leaders long before the concept was definitely made a socio- 
logical principle by Lester F. Ward in 1883.4 Ward proclaimed the 
rightful superiority of mind over matter and of intelligence over in- 
stinctive behavior, and made an effective plea for social planning, or 
social telesis. 

A useful distinction, following Ward, has been made by Bristol,> be- 
tween active material and active spiritual adaptation. The first mentioned 
process, provoked by intersocial stimulation, has led to conquests of the 
material resources of the earth. In a fuller degree active adaptation 
passes from impulsive and narrow visioned material conquests to rational 
and habitually unselfish social achievements. The problems-of active ma- 
terial adaptation do, not concern us here as much as those of active 
spiritual adaptation, although the first mentioned process is based on 
mental interaction and is a foundation of social telesis. 

It is at this last mentioned point that economic thought has been at 
variance with psychological interpretation of society. The economist has 
argued that material civilization is the basis of social life, while the social 
psychologist has pointed out that social life is basic even to material 
civilization and that social life creates and determines all economic values. 
Without social life, contacts, attitudes, and responses, and an elemental 
social spirit, there could be no economic values or material civilization. 

Active spiritual and social adaptation represents the control element of 
accommodation proper. It is characterized by changes in social habits, and 
is complementary to structural and organic changes. All social heritages 
are accommodations, and social organization is a series of accommoda- 
tions.’ Domestication of animals illustrates passive adaptation. Step by 
step through selection the domestication process takes place. Taming 
_ Of animals, on the other hand, represents active adaptation or accommo- 
_ dation, that is, individual animals naturally in conflict with man become 


accommodated to him.® 


i] 





| “Dynamic Sociology, 2 vols. (Appleton, 1915). 

| "Supra, p. 221. 

_ Referred to by Ward as “material achievement” as distinguished from “social 
and spiritual achievement.” ; 

| "An excellent chapter on “Accommodation” has been written by Park and Burgess 

| (Introduction to the Science of Sociology, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1921). 

 *Ibid., p. 665. 

| 





212 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
Sea eee 

Pioneering material and spiritual illustrates active adaptation. The Pil- 
grims brought new types of religion, ethics, and government to America ; 
Copernicus proposed a revolutionary conception of the world; and Wilson 
suggested “fourteen points” for international conduct that would reverse 
many powerful international tendencies. The pioneer is apt to be so 
“different” that his ideas are at once vigorously challenged; he may be 
persecuted, and even may not live to see the accommodation effected — 
which his pioneering spirit has generated. 


TOLERATION 


A deadlock or equilibrium of physical and mental strength leads to © 
toleration, a first step in accommodation. When mental conflict is 
markedly unequal and the superiority of one idea or procedure is un- 
disputed, there will be no toleration. 

We tolerate what we cannot avoid, but we may continue to dislike and — 
to disapprove. During this period of status quo, however, new contacts — 
are made. Out of them a favorable reaction may now and then be ex-— 


perienced by one side or the other. If the period of toleration continues 
long enough a number of favorable reactions may be experienced by both | 





\ 


opponents. These wholesome experiences gradually wear away the effect 
of the repellent contacts and furnish a basis for further accommodation. 
Toleration is often deceptive; it seems to mean more than it is. A 
person may tolerate another but in effect be saying to himself: “Just | 
wait, ’ll get even with you yet, old fellow.” Politeness is often the cloak 
that deceptive toleration wears. T'wo rival society belles or two athletes” 
from rival institutions may shake hands and, as far as the public sees, are” 
the best of friends but at heart they despise one another. ‘ 
The teacher or club leader may tolerate an obstreperous pupil or mem- 
ber, in the hope of ultimately benefiting him. A pupil may tolerate the 
unpleasant ways of a narrow-minded teacher in order not to lower his” 
chances for a passing grade, or a group member may tolerate group 
laughter in order to be able ultimately to be elected “president” or secure 
some other favor from the group. Wherever toleration exists it generall q 
has an ulterior purpose. | 
Rational tolerance is difficult to secure where established feeling cur- 
rents prevail. Mountain feuds do not ordinarily permit of toleranc 
The sight of one belonging to the enemy family prompts the drawing of 
weapons. Race prejudices may become so bitter that anyone’s life is 
endangered who even pleads for tolerance. A few years ago the mayo! 















ACCOMMODATION 213 





of Omaha attempted to persuade a mob to tolerate an alleged wrong until 
the courts could act, and immediately the noose was thrown around the 
mayor’s neck and he was dragged to the ground, barely escaping death. 
The darkest pages of human history might be written in terms of 
intolerance. 


SUBORDINATION 


One of the simpler types of accommodation is subordination. The 
inferior bows to the superior; the inexperienced to the experienced; and 
the person of no social standing to the one of “birth.” The status of 
follower is the most common form of subordinated accommodation. The 
relation of child to parent, and under the patriarchal system, of wife and 
husband, also illustrates this principle. 

Not only may one individual be subservient to another, as a slave to 
his master or a subject to a despotic ruler, but individuals may be subject 
to group dominance and coercion. The will of the majority or a majority 
rule represents subordination of the individual to the group. Subordina- 
tion may also be related to a principle, as in the case of a missionary who 
dedicates his life to religious teaching. 

Slavery is an outstanding illustration of subordination; it is a form 
of accommodation where one person has become the property of another, 


where he has no or few political rights, where he is socially on a low 


level, and where he performs compulsory labor.® The origin of slavery 
is to be found in force, in unequal ability to fight, and in unequal social 
circumstances ; and the strength that slavery once acquired was due chiefly 
to the development of a social system and an educational training which 
gave to the children of slaves the belief that they are “slaves.” The 
“system” killed off all who remonstrated and thus the mass of children 
born in slavery were offspring of the more docile parents. Slavery, and 
likewise the caste system, constituted one of the lowest forms of standard- 
ized mental reaction that mankind has devised, for it prevented the 


“majority of the people from experiencing normal social contacts, from 
responding even to accidental new social stimuli, and from enjoying and 


, 
| 
| 





profiting by the forms of mental reaction which prevail when democracy 
tules, 


CUSTOM VERSUS ACCOMMODATION 


Custom abhors accommodation. Possessing the prestige of having 
“worked,” custom is apt to pose as perfect, unimprovable. It has become 


°H. J. Nieboer, Slavery as an Industrial System (The Hague, 1910), pp. 5, 6. 


214 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


ee eee eS eee 


embedded in the habits of persons, and cannot easily be made over. Cus- 
tom sometimes fallaciously refuses to accommodate itself on the ground 
that if it yields an inch an ell will be taken. 

Certain ranges of social phenomena are more custom-bound, than 
others. For example, religion, science, and law have their rigid sides 
which resist accommodation, and plastic sides which admit of adjust- 
ments and additions. Religion is largely controlled by custom in the 
matter of creeds and dogmas, but not in the practical activities and the 
dynamic lines of social service. Science has its hypotheses and theories 
which resist change, but makes observations and measurements without 
end. Law clings tenaciously to principles and doctrines, but is extensible 
“on the side of rulings, decisions, and statutes.” *° 


COMPROMISE 


Compromise is the main form of accommodation. When both sides | 
to a controversy recognize the necessity of making an adjustment a mental 
sparring process occurs. Each will give in as little as possible and yet 
will endeavor to get as large a concession as it may from the other. 

Compromise leads to a variety of adjustments. There may be a. 
mutual acceptance of a strong middle course. Each of the cut-throat 
competitors may right-about-face and organize a monopoly, pool their 
interests, and arrange for a division of the expected profits, as illustrated 
in the shift from competing railroads and oil companies, to the organiza- 
tion of gigantic combinations on a “community of interests’ basis. . 

Compromise may end in the maintenance of the original competitive 
units which agree to divide the field among themselves, as in the case. 
of Protestant missionary societies that have divided certain force 
“fields,” each agreeing to keep out of the territory of the other. Only 
in recent years have educational heads begun to make agreements where 
one university develops certain departments and a neighboring institution 
certain others. 

Compromise is a principle that should be resorted to whenever the 
contending forces seem to possess more or less equal social and mor 1 
justification. If the facts on one side are socially constructive and o 
the other harmful, as in connection with the widespread use of intoxi- 
cating liquors, then compromise would be bad. To “stand pat” on 
social and moral principles, and to fight the evil forces threatening them 


” Georg Simmel, “Superiority and Subordination” (transl. by A. W. Smali 
Amer. Jour, of Sociology, 11: 172-186. et 


’ 


; 


ry 
. 


| 








' 
4 


ee 


ACCOMMODATION 215 


is better than to compromise. To accommodate one’s self to evil, to 
marry a man “in order to reform him,” to condone sin in order to avoid 
a “row” are all dangerous procedures, for in the interim, habits both 
individual and social may become established. Sometimes the only suit- 
able attitude to take is not accommodation but aggressiveness. 
Conciliation implies an attitude of willingness to compromise. When 
an attitude of genuine good will exists accommodation is practically 
assured. The main function of peace makers is perhaps that of stimu- 
lating the spirit of conciliation. If mutual sacrifice is not thus engen- 
dered, compromise is apt to end in perfunctory ceremony, having the 


form but not the substance of real accommodation. 


CONVERSION AND ACCOMMODATION 


A quick form of accommodation is conversion, i. e. a sudden change 
in attitudes and ideals. Established habits are abruptly broken and new 
ones started in their places, usually under a great emotional strain. The 
best illustrations are found in the religious field where supernatural 


power is called in as an aid in making an about-face and where a person 


suddenly acquires a great faith in this power. The psychologist would 
probably give social suggestion and auto-suggestion considerable credit in 
conversion phenomena. 

Many conversions are returns to attitudes and habits that were started 
in childhood and youth. The mother’s cry, “Where is my wandering boy 
tonight?” has little or no appeal to the man who had a licentious, child- 
beating mother, but is peculiarly effective with him who ran away from 
home as a boy, leaving a broken-hearted, loving mother to pine and die. 

The maintenance of conversion depends not only on a store of habits 
that may be resuscitated, but also upon the social stimuli that function. 
If these came from constructive, sympathetic religious contacts then con- 
version may hold long enough for the necessary new habits to become 
established. But if all the convert’s social contacts be non-religious, anti- 


religious, or vicious then conversion represents a precarious accommo- 
dation. 


EVOLUTIONARY ACCOMMODATION 


Slow and steady adjustment is perhaps the best. It is circumspect while 
engaged in “building more stately mansions” for society. Groups, as 
well as persons, progress best by evolutionary accommodation; revolution 
by way of contrast, destroys worthy habits and cultural values as well 


216 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
SSSR rvm IFoo FA eon be RN nn se 


as unworthy ones. For several decades past the people of England have 
responded sufficiently to the rising tide of labor influence to avoid revo- 
lution and yet slowly enough to conserve the social values acquired during 
the past centuries. The labor leaders of England also are following the 
principle of evolutionary accommodation. They actually refrained from 
attempting to secure the control of the House of Commons until the 
rank and file, the voting majority had reached a reasonable level of 
political judgment. The leaders have been shrewd enough to see that 
if the laboring class jumped into the control of government they would 
not have time to develop the political understanding and vision requisite 
to meet their greatly enlarged responsibilities. By acquiring power faster 
than its members learn to exercise power, a group may wreck itself. 
Accommodation, personal or group, requires time, patience, training. 
Hence, leaders must be guided by the speed with which their constituents 
are able to give up old habits and establish new ones, rather than by 
their own idealism. 


PERSONAL TRAITS AND ACCOMMODATION 


Accommodation depends on personal temperament. If one is phleg- 
matic, and if his reaction time is slow, he is apt to accommodate himself — 
slowly. On the other hand a nervous temperament shifts. The phleg-— 
matic temperament once adjusted stays adjusted; the nervous is apt to 
be changeable and to be a poor subject for dependable accommodation. 

Disposition is another important factor in accommodation, for the 
sunny disposition is better material than the sour. An agreeable person | 
is committed by nature to the principle of accommodation; a “srouch” | 
finds fault but is slow to change or to assist in making needed accom 

| 


modation. 


DUALISTIC ACCOMMODATION 


Accommodation does not represent complete assimilation, but an ad- 
justment of different ideas or procedures which have not wholly melted 
into a common idea or procedure. Hence accommodation represent 
a dualism. In its results are represented either opposites or else differ 
ences of degree. A democratic social organization is the product 0 
ideas of personal liberty and social control. To keep a democratic state 
from going to pieces anarchistically or from coming to a stop at the dea 
center of communism requires skillful pilots trained in the principles o 










ACCOMMODATION 217 





accommodation. The Republican or Democratic parties are queer com- 
binations of both conservative and liberal elements. 

Every person likewise is characterized by beliefs and practices that 
are anomalous. One person is penurious and lavish toward different 
objects at the same time; another is characteristically spiteful and devoted 
toward different persons, and so on. Not being able to view himself as 
others see him, he remains unaware of his inconsistencies. Friends are 
too considerate and for fear of hurting his feelings do not help to 
eliminate the contradictions in his habits. Moreover, a person often 
stubbornly refuses to examine past prejudices which have become anom- 


-alous in new beliefs he has acquired. The Descartean remedy is often 


needed, whereby one throws out all his beliefs and takes back only those 
which represent logical growth and accommodation. 


PRINCIPLES 


I. The first step in accommodation is passive adaptation whereby un- 
willed changes are effected by the action of the environment. 

2. Active adaptation, or accommodation proper, implies the use of in- 
telligence in modifying environment or in making over one’s self. 

3. Active material adaptation owes much to social stimuli and results 
in the exploitation and utilization of natural resources. 

4. Active spiritual adaptation consists in transforming culture, social 
organizations, and human attitudes. 

5. Tolerance, an initial step in accommodation, is often deceptive. 

6. Accommodation may terminate in relationships of subordination and 
super-ordination, as in the case of slavery. 

7. Custom opposes accommodation, for it fears change. 

8. The main form of accommodation is compromise which may end in 
the making of a new super-organization, in disjunctive agreement, 
or in division of the field. 

9. Conciliation is an attitude favoring reasonable accommodation. 

Io. The quickest form of accommodation is conversion, the success of 
which depends on the support of new habits and helpful social 
contacts. 

11. The most dependable type of accommodation is evolutionary, for time 
is thus given whereby personal habits may be made over and group 
heritages adjusted. 


| 12. Accommodation is a dualism, or an adjustment between elements 





somewhat different, complementary, or opposite. 


218 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


ERR mnneeeD 00 00 Pacem anime Ee ee 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. Distinguish betwen passive and active adaptation. 

. Distinguish between active spiritual and passive spiritual adaptation. 
. What is tolerance? 

. Why is subordination common? 

. What is conciliation ? 

What is conversion ? 

How does accommodation vary with personality? 

_ In what sense is accommodation a dualism? 


ON AuAR WD 4H 


PROBLEMS 


Under what conditions are you least tolerant? 

. Why is toleration often deceptive? 

_ When should one be a compromiser ? ; 

_ How did the compromise work of Henry Clay prevent the South from © 
winning the Civil War? 

. How might further compromise have prevented the war altogether? — 

. Why is not conciliation more common than it is? 

When is conversion a reliable form of accommodation ? 

What examples of evolutionary accommodation have you observed? — 

. Upon what factors does the speed of accommodation by the indi- — 
vidual depend ? 

10. What dualistic accommodations have you noted in your own per- 

sonality ? 


5 2 sl 


10 ON AN 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Baldwin, J. M., Mental Development (Macmillan, 1895), pp. 476-488. 

Begbie, Harold, Twice-born Men (Revell, 1909). 

Bristol, L. M., Social Adaptation (Harvard Univ. Press, 1915). 

Huntington, Ellsworth, Civilization and Climate (Yale Univ. Press, 
19O15) Ghee 

Morley, John, On Compromise (London, 1874). | 

Park and Burgess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology (Univ. of 
Chicago Press, 1921), Ch. X. i 

Ross, E. A., Principles of Sociology (Century, 1920), Ch. XX. 

Simmel, George, “Superiority and Subordination as Subject Matter of | 
Sociology,” trans. by A. W. Small, Amer. Jour. of Sociology II: | 
167-189 ; 392-415. 


oa 


CHAPTER XIX 
ASSIMILATION 


FTER accommodation comes assimilation. In this process there 

is a further harmonizing of mental attitudes. The sutures found 
in accommodation tend to disappear and a new unity arises which is by 
no means the mere sum of the constituent units. 

The material to be assimilated may be expected normally to have run 
the gamut of toleration, compromise, accommodation; it must submit 
itself in turn to being assimilated in a still larger unit. The idea of God 
as a tribal deity comes into conflict with a different tribal concept of 
God, and ultimately the two melt into one belief, namely, in a national 
God, which in turn enters into conflicts with the beliefs concerning the 
national deities of other nations, and the whole process is repeated. The 
languages of the Angles and the Saxons conflict with the language of the 
Celts, Normans, French, as well as with the older Latin and Greek lan- 
guages, and after a long period of time a new product is reached, the 
English language, which although a hodge-podge, nevertheless, has ac- 
quired a dictionary entity. But as nations contact one another and the 
technique of world communication is improved, the English language will 
enter into a new conflict for world supremacy among languages. What 
the result will be, no one can now say, but the accommodation stage is 
already being reached. 

Assimilation is distinctly a mental process, involving the remaking of 
habits. It is the uniting of minds into common ways of reacting, and 
hence involves giving up old loyalties and the building of new ones, 
which is in essence a re-habituation process. Hence, assimilation requires 
time. Ordinarily no one makes over fundamental habits quickly. 
| Assimilation is an educational process, in which direct and indirect 
suggestion and the making of habits function. With or without teachers, 
every individual throughout life is going to school to life, absorbing new 
ways of doing, and making over his stock of habit mechanisms. Cultural 
education serves to bring a larger variety of viewpoints into a person’s 
life than does daily experience, and so is basic to assimilation, 

_ An excellent definition of assimilation is given by Park and Burgess: 


“Assimilation is a process of interpenetration and fusion in which persons 
| 219 





220 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


and groups acquire the memories, sentiments, and attitudes of other 
persons or groups, and by sharing their experiences and history, are in- 
corporated with them in a common cultural life.” In this process there — 
stand out participation, subtle changes, gradual growth. These terms 

present assimilation in contrast to accommodation with its open, abrupt — 
external characteristics. Assimilation is so highly subjective, that it is : 
hard to observe and hence to understand, and yet it is one of the main — 
results of intersocial stimulation. A leading product of assimilation is — 
likemindedness, a concept developed as early as 1896 by Giddings.* 3 



























NATURALIZATION AND ASSIMILATION 


A well known phase of assimilation is naturalization, a process whereby — 
a person swears away his loyalty to one national group and acquires a 
loyalty to another group. Where a person has suffered persecution in — 
his native land, as in the case of the Jews in Russia, or where he has 
been an illiterate in an autocratically controlled monarchy, he may not 
have much loyalty to give up, and hence, when the immigrant reaches 
a free country, the naturalization process is simplified. But when a 
loyal Englishman leaves home even for the United States, another Eng- 
lish-speaking country, he is not readily naturalized, for to him naturali- 
zation means first of all denationalization. He must give up his loyalty 
to the Union Jack, which is almost impossible because that flag has 
been for him the center of much feeling and sentiment and habitual 
patriotic responses. A reason why English immigrants do not becom 
naturalized in the United States as soon as certain other immigrants is 
because of special difficulty they experience in getting denationalized. 
J. Bridges analyzes this set of problems well, showing how the time 
element and sympathetic treatment in the new land are essential.2 Edward 
A. Steiner has skilfully and with psychological insight depicted a similar 
type of difficulties, even more delicate and deep-seated, namely, de-religio - 
ization, that is, the giving up of an ingrained religion.* hi 

The experiences of Prussia in attempting to Prussianize the Poles, 
of Russia in Russianizing the Poles, of Hungary in Magyarizing Slovak: 
and Croatians all reveal a woeful lack of knowledge of the assimilation 
process, and especially of the first steps in it. In Prussia and Russia 
the Poles were forbidden to use their own language, and at once wefe 


_ Introduction to the Science of Sociology (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1921), Dp. 735 
* Principles of Sociology (Macmillan, 1896), pp. 17 ff. £ 
: On Becoming an American (Marshal Jones, I9IQ). 
From Alien to Citizen (Revell, 1914). 


= 


ASSIMILATION 221 





made aware of how they were being manipulated. To forbid the use 
of one’s native tongue, especially when that is inseparably bound up 
with religious worship and with domestic experiences and sentiments, at 
once arouses one’s loyalty to that which one is about to lose. One will 
die rather than give up the old loyalties. On the other hand, the Poles 
in Prussia, before an active Prussianization program was inaugurated, 
were gradually losing their Polish ways and slowly becoming Prussian 
as a result of the indirect influence of a seemingly disinterested environ- 
ment. : 

_ Denationalization, the first step in naturalization, can be promoted only 
indirectly. A person cannot be forced to give up loyalties, but new 
ideals can be made so attractive that he will grow loyal to them, and 
without being aware of the change gradually outgrow old loyalties. It 
is only when-a crisis comes, that he realizes how his loyalties have become 
modified. How many persons after living in a large city or in a new 
country for a number of years are astounded upon return to the “old 
home” to find how small it seems, how they themselves have changed, 
and how quickly they become restless under the old conditions. 


ETHNIC ASSIMILATION 


There are several theories and policies of ethnic assimilation.s The 
best known in our country is the “melting pot’ theory. A figure of 
speech is rarely accurate and the melting pot concept has been misinter- 
preted. Mr. Zangwill’s original idea was thoroughly democratic, but 
immigrant interpretations have developed unfavorable meanings. The 
figure of the melting pot brings to the immigrant oftentimes the picture 
of himself being dangled over a cauldron into which he is about to be 
dropped and from which he ultimately will emerge a member of the 
‘body politic, but having lost all semblance of his former self. 

_ The melting pot theory has furthered the laissez-faire policy of doing 
nothing regarding assimilation. After 1909, when the melting pot figure 
of speech caught the public fancy, there was a widespread conviction 
‘that ethnic fusion had been taking place more or less automatically. 
People had taken pride in referring to our country as a vast assimilation 
cauldron, and had not investigated the facts, which received no publicity 
until after the United States entered the World War. Then it became 


i * Four of these are well summarized by I. B. Berkson in his Theories of American- 
tzation (Teachers College, Columbia Univ., 1920), Ch. II. 
*See Zangwill’s drama, The Melting Pot. 


} 





222 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


known at large that there were hundreds of thousands, if not millions of 
immigrants who were living in our large cities and industrial centers in 
huddled groups having few contacts with American life at its best. There 
were vast undissolved lumps in the body politic. 

A second proposal is well illustrated in the American attitude in I9I7 — 
and 1918 that indiscriminately called immigrants “foreign invaders.” 
Many Americans gained patriotic prestige by urging the use of force, 
and by declaring in effect that immigrants must all “get a hustle on = 
themselves and get naturalized, or get out of the country at once.” Their 
languages were to be denied them and they were to be compelled to 
become like us. This Prussian method has, of course, little scientific 
value, and represents a narrow-minded, autocratic attitude. 

A third suggestion is that of ethnic federation. Each group is to 
maintain its racial integrity ; inter-marriage is not to occur; but a common 
type of culture is to be developed. According to this conception ethnic 
differences are the basic matters in the life of each member of the groups. 
“they are primary, and ineradicable because natural, while all other dif- 
ferences, those of environment and acquired, are secondary and 
changeable.”? This theory is hardly tenable, but is serviceable for pur- 
poses of comparison. af 

The community theory means developing a community of culture as 
a psychical and educational process. This is the idea that is represented 
in the best interpretations of Americanization as disclosed in the following 
definitions quoted elsewhere by the writer: 


Americanization means giving the immigrant the best America has to offer 
and retaining for Americans the best in the immigrant. 


Americanization is the uniting of new and native-born Americans in fuller 
common understanding and appreciation, to secure by means of self- 
government the highest welfare of all.” } 


It is in mental and cultural unity that we expect to find the true goal 
of ethnic fusion. We cannot ask an immigrant to give up his loyalty 
to his home land where his early days were spent, where he learned his 
mother tongue, and where his parents lived and perhaps have died. He 
who has no such loyalties has no dependable basis for developing a new 
set of loyalties. It is doubtful if he who has never loved anyone will 
become a dependable citizen. A great love and loyalty are built by 
degrees: and hence, the immigrant may be expected to keep his home 


* Tbid., Pp. 86. | 
® Essentials of Americanization (Univ. of Southern California Press, 1923), Ch. I 


. 
i 
| 


| 


ASSIMILATION 223 


land loyalty providing he will try to fit it in, or significant phases of it, 
into the new national loyalty. His native tongue is of value in his new 
habitat, for it will serve as a means of connecting a new people with an 
ancient literature and cultural history. Immigrants from all races thus 
bring the keys that unlock the cultural treasure-stores of all mankind. 
They may be encouraged to offer their gifts of art, music, and song, 
hand-work, cultural viewpoint to the making of a new cosmopolitan cul- 
ture, and to fit them into a new all-inclusive cultural unity. 

The community theory includes the participation method. The immi- 
grant is expected to take part first in the community life and then in the 
larger life into which he has entered; it is essential that he be given 
reasonable opportunities and stimuli to participate. The primary result 
ordinarily is a new sense of responsibility, of social or group conscious- 
ness, and of democratic responsiveness. The method is illustrated in the » 
community organization process at its best, for it provides that partici- 
pation whereby an individual feels himself a responsible part of any 
movement or group or institution. The immigrant is usually willing to 
participate to the extent that he understands what is to be done and 1s 
able to respond, but the native is generally slow or reluctant to give the 
newcomer the needed opportunities. The “stranger” is handicapped until 
he can demonstrate his honesty; he must be careful to show himself 
worthy of confidence. The native is handicapped by prejudice and often 
by feelings of superiority, aloofness, and unwillingness to be democratic. 


ACCULTURATION 


Acculturation is a phase of assimilation that refers to the fusions of 
cultures; it is a leading theme in ethnology. The study of racial contacts 
“among primitive peoples deals largely with acculturation. Material ele- 
“ments are the first to be transmitted from race to race; “the objective 
demonstration” of their effect is sufficient to secure their adoption. The 
_ transmission and adoption of stimulants, firearms, the potato, poison 
| gases, motion pictures illustrate a common phase of acculturation. In 
_ this connection “the basic patterns” of family and social life remain prac- 
) tically unmodified despite transformations in technique, in language, and 
in religion, and indicate that acculturation is an uneven process, taking 
_ place in certain phases of cultural life but not affecting others. 
| The interesting problem arises whether acculturation may take place 
| too rapidly. Can a primitive group be truly “converted” to a new religion, 


such as Christianity with high ethical standards, in a short space of time? 
































224 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
ee 


What happens when a low cultural group comes suddenly into contact 
with a higher cultural group? Evidently there is much re-organization — 
with a certain amount of disorganization and deterioration taking place.® — 
Missionaries have often failed to appreciate the full significance of ac- 
culturation.° It is apparently a mistake for people “to wear out their | 
souls in efforts to convert the thirteenth century into the nineteenth in 
a score of years.”%t According to Wallis: “Sudden transformations — 
usually mean the rapid death and disappearance of the people themselves — 
as well as of their culture.”12 The missionary, like the evangelist at 
home, must see to it that there is not too much negation, too much taboo, ~ 
and too little that is socially positive in his religious program.” i 

The “mass movements” in India where multitudes as groups hav 
adopted Christianity do not provide for acculturation. The substantial - 
character of the results is thus to be questioned. 

An even more serious form of negative and deteriorative acculturation 
is that resulting from the contacts of commerce with primitive peoples. 
Here oftentimes destructive techniques have been introduced in a whole-. 
some way, sometimes for purposes of pecuniary exploitation, and again, 
just because the commercial promoters are away from home and give 
their lower nature, particularly their sex nature, free reign. This disas- 
trous phase of acculturation needs to be dealt with by a strong world 
conscience, expressing itself through a world organization. | 


AMALGAMATION 


A leading outgrowth of assimilation is amalgamation, a process which 
is sometimes called biological assimilation. It refers to the fusion of 
races by intermarriage. It is the process of developing blood relationships 
and of making new races. 

Amalgamation naturally follows assimilation. After people have | 
learned to think alike, they are apt to intermarry. In other words, when 
assimilation occurs and a community of minds takes place, the problems 
of intermarriage have disappeared. Until assimilation has been achieved, 
amalgamation is not advisable, for the one who marries out of his racial 


° Quoted by Park and Burgess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology, p. 73% 
from River’s study of Melanesian and Hawaiian cultures. 

” A set of practical and concrete illustrations of the problems facing the missionary 
who wishes his culture upon peoples of a different culture is given by D. J. Fleming, 
Contacts with Non-Christian Cultures (Doran, 1923). | 

“Mary H. Kingsley, West African Studies (London, 1901), 379. 

™ Amer. Jour. of Theology, XIX: 271. 

*W.C. Smith, Jour. of Applied Sociology, VII: 184. 


ASSIMILATION 225 


group will be ostracized by that group, and will by no means feel at 
home in the new racial group. The problems of amalgamation are largely 
chimerical except as the laws of assimilation are disregarded. 

A bad form of amalgamation is found where civilized and uncivilized 
races contact one another, for miscegenation occurs between the morally 
weak men of the higher race and the less advanced women of the lower 
race. Mixed bloods of illegitimate origin are the product of vicious 
social conditions, and yet may yield a surprisingly large percentage of 
capable persons, as demonstrated by outstanding leaders among mu- 
lattoes in the United States. In these pathological phases of amalgama- 
tion, the sex impulses have been the controlling factor and have operated 
irrespective of the laws of assimilation. 

The rate of racial intermarriage depends on many factors, chief of 
which is the assimilation differential, namely, the greater the racial differ- 
ences the lower the percentage of racial intermarriage. Some races may 
have a definite set of traditions against intermarriage, as represented by 
Jewish customs with reference to Gentiles, and some peoples may follow 
specific religious instructions, as represented by Catholic rules regarding 
intermarriage with non-Catholics. Ina study of 100,000 marriages in New 
York City, extending over a five year period (1908-1912), by Julius 
Drachsler,‘* it was found that the ratio of intermarriage for men and 
women of all nationalities, as a group, is about fourteen out of every one 
hundred marriages, with “a strong tendency for intermarriage to occur 
within identical generations.” The social intermarriage rate for Jews 
and Negroes is the lowest of all, for the Jews because of distinctions of 
religion, and for the Negroes, because of color and other prejudicial 
differences. The ratio is also lowest for first generation immigrants, 
because their contacts are greatly limited and their points of view are 
apt to be specialized. 

_ The three main factors which seem to operate in furthering amalgama- 
tion, for example, in New York City are: (1) the preponderance of 
marriageable men over marriageable women, with the consequent seeking 
of mates in outside groups; (2) a rise in economic status, although here 
a controlling social reaction sets in as soon as a medium economic level 
attained. Social exclusiveness begins to operate forcefully with eco- 





omic success, and cuts down the intermarriage rate to that, if not 
elow that, of the lowest economic classes, and (3) a diminution in the 

intensity of the group consciousness or in the attitude of group soli- 
“Democracy and Assimilation (Macmillan, 1920), Chs. IV, V. 








226 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


darity.® In the second generation the increase in intermarriage rate 1s 
offset by a decrease in “the number of nationalities with which individuals 
of the second generation intermarry.” Here again the attitude of social 
aloofness operates with increasing force. The second generation suffers a 
break in racial solidarity but to the extent that it experiences success, its 
release from regulations against intermarriage are counter-balanced by 
new bonds of social exclusiveness. The intermarriage rate varies in the 
main according to the increase or decrease of social contacts. | 
Amalgamation is often objected to because races are inferior and 
superior in stock and thus the superior will be pulled down. There is 
probably more difference in quality of stock between members of any 
given race than there is between races. “No race is lacking in any 
essential characteristic of mind,” declares E. B. Reuter, after a careful 
scientific scrutiny of the data.** Superiority and inferiority relate essen-_ 
tially to the time of observation." It makes a difference whether you rate 
the Anglo-Saxon race according to its cultural status in 1000 B. C., or now. 
Social contacts and stimuli seem to be the most important factors creating 
racial “inferiority” or “superiority.” | 
Biological assimilation is not to be forced. Unlike mental assimilation 
it requires generations. A new race is not made in a day, but rather in 
a thousand years. “Too rapid a mixture involves a sudden break with 
cultural tradition, and a consequent demoralization of the individual.” 
Biological assimilation is the slowest to operate of all phases of human 
interaction. The whole process hinges on mental assimilation, which is 
both educational and social. | 


PRINCIPLES 

i. The natural culmination of accommodation is assimilation, a process 
of uniting mental attitudes into a new and greater psychical and 
cultural whole. 

2. The heart of the assimilation process is education. 

3. Naturalization is a phase of assimilation whereby an individual gives 
up what loyalty he has to one nation and develops loyalty to another, 

4. Ethnic assimilation may either be of the “melting pot” type, the 
“Prussianizing” type, the racial federation type, or the community 
and participation type. | 

* Drachsler, ibid., pp. 146-148. 


x opulation Problems (Lippincott, 1923), P. 275: 
1d. 


bo He 


An PWN 


COON 


ASSIMILATION 27 


. Acculturation is a phase of assimilation that involves the conflicts 


and fusions of different racial cultures. 


. Amalgamation, or biological assimilation, is the making of a new 


racial stock through miscegenation. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. Distinguish between accommodation and assimilation. 
. What are the psychological fallacies in “Prussianization” as it was 


applied to the Poles? 


. What is meant by ethnic assimilation? _ 

. In what ways is the melting pot theory of ethnic assimilation weak? 
. Why is the laissez-faire policy of ethnic assimilation inadequate? 

. Why is ethnic federation insufficient ? 

. What is the chief merit of the “participation” method as a mode of 


assimilation ? 


. Illustrate the acculturation process. 
. Why may acculturation take place too rapidly? 
. Why should missionaries be thoroughly versed in acculturation 


principles? 


. What is the relation of amalgamation to assimilation? 

. What is the “assimilation differential ?” 

. Upon what factors does the rate of racial intermarriage depend? 
. Why can biological assimilation not be forced? 


PROBLEMS 


. In what way have you felt the process of assimilation? 


Why is naturalization an unusually delicate psychological process? 


. Distinguish between naturalization and nationalization. 

. What is the best way to help a person develop a new loyalty? 

. What is the psychological weakness in the verb “to Americanize ?” 

. In what sense is ethnic federation an accommodation process and 


in what sense assimilation? 


. How is the English language a product of acculturation? 
. Will the acculturation process probably continue until all the races of 


the world become one race? 


. What are the main objections to the intermarriage of persons be- 


longing to widely different races? 


228 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Abbott, Grace, The Immigrant and the Community (Century, IQI7). 
Antin, Mary, The Promised Land (Houghton Mifflin, 1912). 
Boas, Franz, The Mind of Primitive Man (Macmillan, IQII). 
Bogardus, E. S., Essentials of Americamzation (Univ. of Southern Cali- 
fornia Press, 1923), Chs. I, XXI. 7 
Bridges, H. J., On Becoming an American (Marshall Jones, 1919). 
Butler, F. C., Community Americanization (U. S. Bureau of Education | 
Bul., 1919, No. 80). 
Drachsler, Julius, Democracy and Assimilation (Macmillan, 1920). | 
Lipsky, Abram, “The Political Mind of Foreign-born Americans,” Popu- 
lar Sct. Mon., 85: 393-403. 
MacKaye, Percy, The Immigrants (Huebsch, 1915). 
Miniter, Edith, Our Natupski Neighbors (Holt, 1916). 
Neumann, Henry, “Teaching American Ideals through Literature,”*- 
(Bul., 1918, No. 2, Dept. of Interior, Washington). : 
Park and Burgess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology (Univ. of 
Chicago Press, 1921), Ch. XI. 7 
Park and Miller, Old World Traits Transplanted (Harper, 1921). ? 
Ravage, M. E., An American in the Making (Harper, 1917). 
Steiner, E. A., From Alien to Citizen (Revell, 1914). | 
Thomas, W. I., “The Prussian-Polish Situation: An Experiment in As- 
similation,” Amer. Jour. of Sociology, V : 57-76. ¥ 
Weatherly, U. G., “The Racial Element in Social Assimilation,” Publica- 
tions of the American Sociological Society, V: 57-76. e 
Zangwill, Israel, The Melting Pot (Macmillan, 1909). 


§ 








CHAPTER XX 
SOCTALIZATTON 


OCIALIZATION is the climax of intersocial stimulation. It is that 
process whereby individuals with no outlook or understanding develop 
into self-respecting persons with a full-orbed social responsibility. E. A. 
Ross has pointed out that socialization is “the development of the we- 
feeling in associates and then growth in capacity and will to act together.” 
The key-word is “we-feeling.” Socialization to F. H. Giddings includes 
the development of “a social state of mind,’? and to E. W. Burgess 
it involves the participation of the individual in the spirit, purposes, de- 
cisions, and actions of groups.°. Holding oneself responsible for the wel- 
fare of other persons is an added and higher moral note given by C. A. 
Ellwood.* It involves the development of a social self control rather 
than an objective social control.® 
Socialization is the process whereby individuals unconsciously and 
consciously learn to act, feel, and think dependably together but not 
necessarily alike in behalf of human welfare outside their own, and in so 
doing experience intrinsic changes involving an increasing degree of social 
self-control, of social responsibility, and of personal enrichment and 
expansion, 


BASES OF SOCIALIZATION 


I. One of the bases of socialization is the original social nature of 
persons. Being reared in association and amid survival products of 
association every person has a basic social nature which affords an ex- 
cellent ground for the rise of a sense and practice of social responsibility. 


* Principles of Sociology (Century, 1920), p. 395. Ne 

*Theory of Socialization (Macmillan, 1897), p. 2. Also see Giddings’ description 
of Beaton in his Studies in the Theory of Human Soctety (Macmillan, 1922), 
Pp. 287-290. 

be Function of Socialization in Social Evolution (Univ. of Chicago Press, 
1916), p. 2. 

*Christianity and Social Science (Macmillan, 1923), p. 65. 

*Ibid., p. 66; cf. Blackmar and Gillin, Outlines of Sociology (Macmillan, 1923), 
Ch. XVII. 

229 


230 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


In this social nature, apparently, there are mechanisms that respond to 
social stimuli,® and that are capable of expanding into a life dedicated 
to others’ service. 

2. The sympathetic emotions also promote socialization. A given need 
sets off similar emotional mechanisms in different individuals who thereby 
respond together. Suffering brings hard-hearted pioneers together, melts 
antagonisms between relatives, and may even halt firing orders on the 
field of battle. Sympathy bridges the chasms between otherwise isolated 
persons. 

Sympathy has not only individualistic but group origins. The actual 
intermingling of persons in need creates a group sympathy. The sym- 
pathy that springs up within a group 7 is close to the essence of sociali- 
zation. 

3. Socialization includes the social imagination. In imagining one’s 
self in the position of another person, one is fulfilling elemental cognitive 


conditions of socialization. He is putting himself in a position of under- 


standing the problems of others. This use of the social imagination may 
result in taking direct advantage of others, in helping them for ultimate 
personal gain, or in helping them without expectation of reward. It is in 


this last possibility that true socialization and that socialized imagination 


supersedes social imagination. 
4. Habit makes the socialized imagination and similar traits depend- 
able.2 The truly socialized person is he who habitually responds to the 


welfare of other persons without expectation of reward. The tempta- 


tions to take advantage of the untrained, of those less educated than one’s 


self, of the immature are so many and insidious that nothing less than 
the most stable, habitual organization of one’s nature in the direction 


of unselfish social service will suffice. 

5. Communication is essential to socialization. Symbols with their 
meanings connect individuals, allowing them to interstimulate one another 
and provide that degree of understanding which is requisite for mutual 
service and cooperation? By virtue of communication individuals may 
stimulate each other to make original responses, to develop mutual aid, 
or to fight and destroy one another. The deepest type of communication 
is a communion that leads to a consciousness of kindred interests, and of 
a common human nature; it shows that beneath all feuds, hatreds, differ- 

°See Chapter I. 

™M. P. Follett, The New State (Longmans, Green: 1918), Ch. IV. 

*Cf. Chapter III. 


®See Chapter IV. 
See Chapter X. 


SOCIALIZATION 231 


ences of opinion there are similar life and death problems, and similar 
fears, sorrows, and hopes. 

6. Then there is a cognitive recognition of common problems, of mutual 
dependence, and of the need for generous mutual aid in socialization.” 
The importance of this point may be seen by considering the highest type 
of social cooperation among animals. This cognitive factor is absent in 
the extraordinary manifestations of “general organic coOperativeness” of 
the social wasps, beetles, bees, and the ants. ‘“‘Nature’s most startling 
efforts in communal organization” !* are lacking in intellectual approach 
to new problems, in handling problems not present in time or space, with- 
out which socialized effort is totally inadequate. Thanks to the cognitive 
attitude persons can understand the basic similarities and needs of 
mankind everywhere and develop a socialized world point of view. 

7. Co-operative activity is vital to a fully-developed socialization. In 
action we learn, and in cooperative action we learn the meaning of social- 
ization. The thrill of working together wholesomely for a common cause 
represents more genuine socialization than anything else can do. The 
strength of community organization is found in the growing degree of 
social consciousness and of social responsibility that is engendered in the 
working together of persons for community ends. Community recreation 
that secures the participation of 5,000 people in an historical pageant 
arouses a social consciousness that cannot be secured outside of partici- 
pation in a common undertaking for social purposes. 

The most important work is that produced mm common, produced by 
common stimulation, and not that of one person doing the thinking for 
his whole group?® If all the membership of any group contributes new 
suggestions to the best of their ability, each in so doing stimulates all the 
rest to still greater contributions. It is by this type of participation that 
the highest phase of stimulation, invention, and individuality is achieved, 
and that socialization reaches its highest levels. 


GROUP SOCIALIZATION 


The group itself as well as the individual may become socialized. 
Whether of a family or a nation the socialized group is not being realized 
until the socially constructive development of all its human units is 
continuously taking place, and until they act habitually in harmony with 


*See Chapter III. 

*W. M. Wheeler, Social Life Among the Insects (Harcourt, Brace: 1923), 
Pp. 4, 5. 

™M. P. Follett, The New State, p. 34. 


232 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


the larger group or groups of which their group is a part. The socializa- 
tion of a group is the process whereby the members change from a loose 
heterogeneity to an organized homogeneity, with authority distributed to 
each, with each functioning fully in the group enterprises, and with the 
main purposes of the group centered outside itself and harmonized with 
the welfare of all democratic groups, even of humanity itself. A com- 
pletely socialized nationality, for example, is one which acts more or less 
habitually according to world determined sets of standards. 


PERSONAL SOCIALIZATION 


The organization and development of innate impulses and mechanisms 
into a socialized personality is the highest product of intersocial stimu- 
lation. 

The consciousness of self arises when the individual finds himself set 
off in any way against other human beings.* To the infant, everything 
is first of all objective. Even his fingers and toes seem to him to belong 
to an outside world. But when these fingers or toes are pinched or burned, 
they are given a “self” valuation by the owner. Through his experiences, 
his conflicts with other individuals, his defeats at the hands of others, 
and his sufferings in general, the child gradually builds up two worlds, 
an ego world and an alter world with its increasing number of vitally 
interesting human units. In this way he sets up a self-world in apposi- 
tion to an others-world, and his life develops its subjective phases. 

Even the teaching about God has little meaning to the child until he 
suffers pain or loss that neither he nor his parents can absolve; then 
he begins to “pray” in earnest for aid, and in so praying, God becomes 
a tangible entity and the child’s personality becomes more specific to him. 

The individual’s views of himself and of other selves are not dis- 
junctive but rather opposite ends of the same pole of growth, that is of 
personality. With the growth of personality there always arises this bi- 
polarism. From one extremity of the bi-polar psychical life there emanates 
a recognition of the ways in which one’s self is different from other 
selves—individuality. This individuality comprises chiefly responses which 
are different from those of other persons. A human action may be fol- 
lowed docilely by one person, but another may act pugnaciously, thus 
giving him as far as one particular experience goes, a marked individuality. 


% It was this process which was first analyzed by J. M. Baldwin, Social and 
Ethical Interpretations (Macmillan, 1897), Ch. I., and which later was develop 
Ps ay Cooley, Human Nature and the Social Order (Scribners, 1902), Chs. 

, 
. | 


SOCIALIZATION 233 


No two human beings seem to inherit precisely the same types of basic 
neural mechanism; they do not seem to be organized in exactly the same 
ways; their development under the influence of similar environments is 
not wholely the same ; moreover, no two individuals have exactly the same 
environments. 

From the other pole of bi-polar personality there springs an awareness 
of the particulars in which one possesses kindred interests with others, 
a general trait which may be called sociality. Because of experiences, 
social contacts, and stimuli which are similar, individuals develop similar 
reactions to life. Since their ancestors were likewise placed, they have 
inherited similar neural mechanisms, and hence they respond in pretty 
much the same way to the deepest experiences of life, of defeat and 
victory, of sickness and suffering. 

The interstimulation between the ego and alter poles of self results 
in the development of both. The process is one; as a result of the 
intersocial stimulation between human beings the ego and alter of each 
evolve together up or down. The tendency for the ego to dominate is 
strong and unless a person’s social understanding and his sense of fitness 
in a social world is well developed, it will control, giving him a highly 
selfish slant. In some persons, however, the alter secures an irrational 
control and through extra-rational sympathetic reactions prompts the 
individual naively to throw himself to the tigers like Buddha rather than 
help to destroy tigers and thus make the world safe for the social. 

The social consciousness of the child arises simultaneously with the 
development of his self consciousness, although the former may be a little 
ahead of the latter at any particular time. But for the presence, activities, 
and stimulations of other individuals, one’s awareness of self would re- 
main undeveloped. The stimuli which call forth self consciousness are 
caused by one’s social contacts, that is, by intersocial stimulation. The 
degree to which self consciousness becomes organized depends in part 
upon the assertive impulses, the desire for new experience, and upon the 
stimuli of one’s social environments. If the original nature of the child 
bristles with aggressive impulses, his social contacts will produce an exag- 
gerated self assertion, counter suggestion, over-bearing attitudes, pugna- 
ciousness, and even anti-social behavior. For such individuals, socio- 
mental interactions hold the extremes of social development in store, and 
the nature of the social contacts becomes exceedingly important. 

As the child learns the meaning of life through his experiences, he 
reads those meanings into the activities of other persons. He projects his 
interpretations into the folks about him—this is the projective phase of 


234 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


Iba RRR nn Ec Ln nok Sc a nn roneenane 


personality. The projection usually takes place along horizontal planes 
of behavior. A person tends to throw himself out along his occupational 
and social status levels; he fails to understand the behavior of those whose 
status is markedly more complex or simpler than his own. Consequently, 
the tendencies toward the growth of horizontal personalities are greater 
than the tendencies in other directions.*° 

To the growing personality every new phenomenon of life observed 
is at first objective and almost, if not entirely meaningless ; then through 
experiences, particularly suffering, life becomes subjective and full of 
vital significance; and finally through projection of meaning it becomes 
social, and perhaps socialized.1° This process may be called one of social © 
self-development. Thus, throughout life personality may grow richer 
and greater. 

A boy will see a look on his father’s face and not understand what it 
means. Later he may discover that same look on his own face, realize that 
it is a token of distress, and thereafter project that meaning wherever he. 
encounters that look. Thus he becomes expert in reading signs and in~ 
finding personality behind looks, gestures, attitudes. In other words, as 
long as phenomena are purely objective, one can hardly comprehend them. 
Through experiencing them, they become subjective, and highly so if that — 
experience involves suffering, for suffering seems to produce a high } 
degree of emotional discharge. Then, and then only, can one truly project . 
his personality helpfully into the lives of other persons; then can one 
truly sympathize; can one truly feel “the pulse of mankind ;’? and become — 
akin to all people everywhere. Here is found an answer to Job’s ques- 
tion: Why must an innocent man suffer? It is because even a man in-— 
nocent of sin, will slip back into unduly self-centered attitudes, and hence , 
sinful ones, unless through suffering he is repeatedly forced out into 
contact with the sufferings of mankind. f 

Dependable personality is psychical; socialized personality is psychical 
and moral. Strength of character is not enough, for a criminal may have 
strength of character but use it in anti-social ways. Education does not 
necessarily give social reliability, because education may train the indi- 
vidual only in self-strength, self-culture, and show him how to manipulate 
his fellows to his advantage and to their loss. “Why did you come to 
college?” I asked a young man of strong character some time ago, and 

Cf the discussion of the spheric self, linear self, flat self, vein self, star acti 
by E. A. Ross, Principles of Sociology (Century, 1920), 411 ff. . 

Cf the discussion of the social self by C. H. Cooley, Human Nature and the 


Social Order, Chs. V, VI; Social Organization, Chs. I, II; and J. M. Baldwin, Social 
and Ethical Interpretations, Ch. I. 7 


SOCIALIZATION ak 
(ddA Sa IS STEMS SIT. A AC 
he frankly replied, “So that I can learn how to use other people to my 
personal gain.” This statement sounds anti-social and exceptional, and 
yet if frankness prevailed, many people and even institutions would give 
evidence of using their fellows for gain. 

Socialization tends toward moralization, says C. A. Ellwood? To 
the extent that a person identifies himself with all mankind, socializa- 
tion actually attains moralization. He holds himself responsible for the 
welfare of other persons. T. G. Soares states that one is socialized 
when he regards the development of other persons as well as himself as 
ends, “never using anyone simply as a means, and finds his own welfare 
in the welfare of every group to which in any wise he belongs, even the 
great human group in its entirety.” 19 

The socialized personality is produced in an educational atmosphere 
in which the increasing welfare of mankind is constantly sought. Ina 
social life, the only life we know—honesty, reliability, balance, chastity, 
courage of convictions, are essential. The individual develops socially 
dependable habits first through his relationships in his home group and 
then his play group, even in the “gang ;” then through his relationships in 
larger groups, for example, his occupational group, where he may ex- 
emplify a high degree of occupational ethics; then in his actions involving 
national welfare where he reaches levels of patriotism; and also in the 
world group where his sense of social responsibility attains universal 
proportions. The socialized person, therefore, is not fully developed until 
all these various group standards become organized into a harmoniously 
concentric system. Park and Burgess refer to socialization as being 
achieved when all persons “live together as members of one family.” 2° 

Socialization involves one’s attitudes toward all groups, from the 
family to humanity. It is not enough to hold a socialized attitude toward 
the members of one’s family, and antagonistic attitudes toward the 
neighborhood. It is not sufficient to act in socialized ways toward one’s 
nation, and in a non-codperative way toward the world. Socialization in- 
cludes habitual responses of wholesome codperation toward every group, 
smallest to largest, and toward all persons everywhere at least to the 
extent that they show signs of genuine social responsibility. 

The best way to understand the socialization process is to consider the 
experiences of persons who have manifestly developed a broad social 


“ Christianity and Social Science (Macmillan, 1923), p. 65. 
* bid. 


* The Social Institutions and Ideals of the Bible (Abingdon Press, 1915), p. 376. 
“Introduction to the Science of Sociology (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1921), 
Pp. 406. 





236 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


PAT Use ORS SINTN LSC PhD ALON QU USP E AT Fa BAe inte Ris ce cre aL SB Tar crn TS 


vision and understanding. The following set of experiences will illustrate 
the method. A young woman born in the Middle West and now living 
on the Pacific Coast had been taught to hate immigrants, but in a series 
of experiences her race prejudice was modified and even sublimated into a 
generous racial sympathy. Her story begins not simply on an unsocial 
level but far below and ends on a high plane of socialization. The ex- 
periences which effected the change were as follows: 


I was persuaded by a friend to visit a social settlement and while there 
consented to take a class of Italian girls. As I came to know these girls 
personally, I became interested in’their problems and to admire them in many > 
ways. They were appreciative and surprised me again and again by their 
responses to my suggestions. The life of my friend who was a social settle- 
ment resident impressed me greatly, especially her devotion to the immigrants 
and their great loyalty to her. Then, I overheard some foreign-born parents 
tell how they had been scorned by Americans and even exploited, and my 
sense of fair play was aroused in their behalf. I began to see some of the 
disadvantages which were theirs. I took some courses in sociology which 
gave me an acquaintance with the cultural backgrounds of several races, and 
which aroused my interest in them and their problems. I began to see the 
fallacy, in the statement of the man who said he was 200 per cent American 
and hated everybody. Finally, I made some friendships in college with foreign 
students and found among them as fine young people as I had ever met. I 
still see the faults of immigrants, but find that on the whole immigrants are 
no worse than we are, and that they are human beings at heart pretty much 
like us. Before I left college I was elected president of the Cosmopolitan 
Club, and since leaving I have helped to organize an inter-racial committee 
for the discussion of racial problems in our town on the basis of good will 
and cooperative activity. | 


Socialization does not imply an objective social control so much as” 
socialized self control. A person achieves habits of acting for the welfare 
of others, and comes to occupy a position inclusive of social control. Per- 
sonality moves up from a lowly position under social discipline, law and 
control, to a rank far above. A person can control himself to social ends. 
better than society can do so by ordering him. He thus may develop a 
high degree of socialized self direction. 

Socialization seeks unity of purpose, not uniformity of personality.’ 
The aim is not to make all persons alike in methods or traits, but im 
attitude, of having a sincere social welfare attitude of life. Let each 
one remain different, let his unique traits be developed to their fulles 
extent, providing they be dedicated in thought and action to the welfare 
of others without anticipation of personal gain. Socialization would no 
reduce people to a dead level of monotony ; it would secure better than any 

*C. A. Ellwood, Christianity and Social Science, p. 72. 











SOCIALIZATION 237 


other method the fullest development of personality dedicated to the single 
purpose of human welfare. Under socialization everyone stimulates 
everyone else to the largest and richest expansion of his whole nature 
through centering its activities in the welfare of other persons and 
of groups. 


PRINCIPLES 


1. Socialization is the chief process and result of intersocial stimulation. 

2. Socialization arises out of (1) original social nature, (2) the sympa- 
thetic emotions, (3) the social imagination, (4) the desires for 
response and recognition, (5) social habits, (6) communication, 
(7) social understanding, and (8) cooperative activities. 

3. To any individual, life is first objective; through experience it be- 
comes subjective, and then, projective and possibly socialized. 

4. Socialization does not imply an objective social control but a socialized 
self control. 

5. Socialization seeks unity not uniformity of type; it stimulates unique- 

ness and talent into its fullest development rather than seeks a 

leveling down. 

6. Socialization implies the development of the richest social attitudes 
habitually established toward all persons and groups. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


1. What is socialization? 

2. Explain the connection between socialization and (1) original human 
nature, (2) the sympathetic emotions, (3) the social imagination, 
(4) desire for response, (5) social habits, (6) communication, 
(7) social understanding, and (8) codperative activity. 

3. Distinguish between the subjective and projective phases of person- 
ality. 

4. What is the relation of socialization to moralization? 

5. What is the difference between objective social control and socialized 
self control? 

6. Explain: socialization seeks unity of purpose but not uniformity of 
personality. 


PROBLEMS 


1. Why is character socially essential ? 
2. Are all dependable persons social? 


238 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


ROLES ECLA Hectares a ENE) At TRUS alti 

. Are all social persons dependable? 

4. Why have not more socially dependable persons been produced by 
our educational system in the United States? 

5. Why is a socialized personality the highest standard to be obtained? 

6. Show that a group may be unsocial or anti-social, even when the mem- 
bers are prevailingly social. 

7. Grade in order of ability to cooperate: unskilled laborers, farmers, 
college students, housewives, lawyers. 

8. Give reasons why socialization is the chief of all social processes. 

g. Can you indicate a more important social process than socialization ? 


eS) 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Bolton, T. L., “Some Social Laws of Personal Growth,” Jour. of Peda- 
gogy, XIX, No. I. 

Burgess, Ernest W., The Function of S ocialization in Social Evolution 
(University of Chicago Press, 1916). q 

Ellwood, C. A., Christianity and Social Sctence (Macmillan, 1923), 
Chait, 

Giddings, F. H., Studies in the Theory of Human Society (Macmillan, 
1922), pp. 287-290. 4 

Ross, E. A., Principles of Sociology (Century, 1920), Ch. XXXII. 


os ’ 7 : VE PP bey 22 ee WO ica alee Tr tLe | , had . 
Pertteye 3 of! dae bl Sak AL Mr abn eM Th ‘Vi cate ce DOE ig ally i ; Heh des hay 
Pinal iy hs\t? ARIA, Ve CS ee PPro nh of aa | | : re ah 
rf Ae , i ? 
on ae MAN ‘ bast Ae FA | | | | | : 
Wy laetssy ,& ae, ‘tl ti shy : Pe 

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ty Pie) 5 

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a PART THREE 
_ “GROUPS AND INTERSTIMULATION 





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CHAPTER XXI 
SOCIAL GROUPS 


ROUP life is the medium in which all intersocial stimulation occurs. 

Human nature, personal attitudes, and social values emerge only out 
of group life. Groups provide all social contacts and stimuli. Once 
formed the group is prior to the individual. Into groups all individuals 
are born; up through them personality emerges ; and in turn persons domi- 
nate and create groups. “We react in terms of our groups,” says H. A. 
Miller,t “and must always be understood as reflecting them.” Group 
environment is the matrix of all intersocial stimulation. 

The principle of group priority, that is, of the group existing prior to 
any human individual today, may be safely advanced. This principle is 
basic to the concept of imitation as developed by Tarde.? Imitation is 
more a product of group life than is group life the outcome of imitation.® 
Tarde assumes individualistic units becoming like one another, whereas 
the theory of group priority sees individuals imitating as a result of 
having similar group heritages. 

Group priority is also basic to the principle of like-mindedness.* It 
partially explains why individuals are like-minded and why they respond 
similarly to like stimuli. It gives a unified background to both indi- 
vidual differences and likenesses,> as well as to all mental interaction. 

The principle of group priority as conceived by the writer® arises out 
of a comparative study of the concrete facts regarding the individual and 
the group. At birth, the human infant is an inchoate mass of impulses, 
reflexes, and potential responses to simple stimuli. He is physically, psy- 
chically, and socially helpless, and without aid could not survive long. His 
life is maintained only between narrow temperature limits and by the 
simplest of foods. Not being able to creep or walk, to talk, or to care 
for himself, he is a classic illustration of helplessness. 

On the other hand look at what he is born into. There is his parental 
group with its established language, its developed beliefs and ironclad 


*“The Group as an Instinct,’ Amer. Jour. of Sociology, XXVII: 340. 
» The Laws of Imitation (Holt, 1903). 
_M. P. Follett, The New State (Longmans, Green: 1920), p. 37. 
ae Giddings, Principles of Sociology (Macmillan, 1896), pp. 17 ff. 
id. 
*Cf. article in Jour. of Applied Sociology, VII: 84-87. 
241 


242 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


Sa eae 2h 0 WO eC ene meme tern 
rules of conduct, its religious traditions and convictions. These in turn are 
made up out of neighborhood, national, racial, and cultural heritages cen- 
turies, even millenniums old. Often they are permeated by venerable 
superstitions, and by interpretations of life that have been passed from 
generation to generation and possess all the force of the ages. Compare the 
antiquity and the tremendous power of these group forces with the naiveté 
of the new born babe. 7 

Even inherited traits are largely determined by group survival. Ances- 
tors, generation before generation, were reared in groups, lived only as 
members of groups, under group control and survived only as their groups 
survived. An infant could have no hereditary equipment and hence no 
life, had there not been group priority for one, two, and many generations 
before his own life began. 

Assuming that an infant could live outside of groups, how far would he 
develop mentally, socially, and personally? Suppose that from birth he 
could live as it is alleged Caspar Hauser lived, namely, by himself, with 
food being left for him by someone whom he never saw and with whom he 
did not communicate in any way. What would this individual, growing 
up remote from group life, be like at the age of twenty? What language 
would he speak? Would he wear clothes‘ cook food? live in a house? 
What kind of thoughts would he think and about what? : 

Through groups, languages, beliefs, inventions of all sorts, civilization 
has been transmitted from generation to generation, added unto and 
expanded. But for group transmission, the infant of today would have 
to begin in a far simpler, cruder way than the Neanderthal man began. 
Without the power that group transmission of ideas represents to buoy 
him up on the strong wings of civilization, he, or even the most mature of 
us, would not have a chance of surviving long. i 

The group may be a “higher relationship” than a person is, according to 
W. B. Bodenhafer.? He conceives of a person as a set of relationships, 
which is a part of a larger and more complex set of relationships, known 
as the group. Hence it is important to study the group and its influence if 
we would understand persons. é 


RESPONSE TO GROUP STIMULI 


The ability which the human organism possesses of responding to social 
stimuli is another evidence of group priority. The young child is built to 
respond to all manner of stimuli from other human beings. As he grows 

™“The Group as a Valid Concept,” Jour. of Applied Sociology, VIII: 163 J 


f 


7 
! 
' 


| 


SOCIAL GROUPS 243 


older, he becames frantic, insane even, when deprived of all social stimuli. 
It was once thought that the principle of fang and claw functions to the 
exclusion of other principles in the biological world. Darwin was one of 
the first thinkers to point out the omnipresent tendency of higher organisms 
to respond to social stimuli and proved thus that the social nature of man 
is as real as the egoistic. Animals which respond to group stimuli are at 
an advantage over those which rarely so react, and thus the laws of the 
survival of the fittest, when considered in their highest phases, are the laws 
of the survival of the social. If out of these basic group origins, the 
human race has emerged, then the concept of group priority has been 
established. 

If we go further and view a person in his physical aspects as a stimulus- 
response mechanism, we find that he is overwhelmingly attuned to catch 
social stimuli. He seems to be basically a social being who develops 
specially organized sets of habit responses known as gregariousness, sex, 
and parental reactions, and other social tendencies. It seems that it is 
only by apposition to a social consciousness that he becomes aware of a 
self, of a so-called individual self, a self-consciousness; that it is chiefly 
by setting him apart from a group that he can be viewed as an individual 
at all. 

Only individuals survive who respond to group stimuli; no others leave 
offspring. ‘We are descended from a group-responding ancestry. The 
explanation is found in the helplessness of infancy, and the reason for this 
helplessness is the necessity for time in developing a highly complex crea- 
ture. It is in this period of prolonged helplessness that the individual’s 
reliance on others, that is, his group nature, becomes organized. 

Individuals vary in their group-response mechanisms. Some respond 
quickly and almost automatically to the bidding of the group so that they 
are of no use when their group is wrong and headed toward destruction. 
Other individuals who respond only slowly or belatedly to group influence 
are useful when their group is mistaken, but are apt to develop the habit 
of opposing all new group projects and hence may become nuisances. It is 
from this type of persons though, that some of the world’s best leaders 
have come.® 

He who proclaims himself self made, may be, in fact, a mere pygmy 
uplifted on the vast billows of civilization. He is far more group made 
than self made, having been given the advantages of languages, literatures, 
inventions, cultures, that have taken ages to make and that have been 
preserved and transmitted through group continuity. He is family-group 
_ * As we shall see in Part Four on “Leaders and Interstimulation,” 


244 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


made, play-group made, school-group made, culture-group made, even more 
than self made. This realization need not discourage him, but after mak- 
ing him humble enough to reach his greatest social efficiency, it may and 
will stimulate him to be more of an integer and less of a cipher, more of 
an initiator and less of a parrot, “more of a voice and less of an echo.” 


COMMON NEEDS AND GROUP ORIGINS 


The social group has a variety of origins. The interaction of physical 
factors and human beings as well as interaction between human beings 
themselves are among the main causes. Common needs lead to group 
organization. The need for food prompts wolves to hunt in packs; and 
the need for security partly explains why sheep graze in droves. Among 
human beings, the “gang” resembles the animal group, in that it is often 
an expression of elemental needs. In organized society, people slowly 
learn that by putting away their egocentric beliefs and prejudices, sprung . 
from immature thought and judgment, and by working together, they can 
multiply the results of their labors. The whole idea is included in the 
simple illustration of ten men making chairs independently of each other 
as compared with the same ten, dividing up the process of chair-making . 
and each working at a specialized but codrdinated task. 


GEOGRAPHY AND AGGREGATION 


Physical and geographic factors sometimes account for groups. The — 
sparse resources of deserts and steppes draw peoples out into small ma- — 
rauding bands, while rich, fertile valleys throw them together in vast 
masses. Mountains hold peoples apart, while river systems tend to con-— 
centrate them. Geographic influences® produce what Giddings has called — 
aggregation,?° that is, the physical proximity of peoples. Aggregation may — 
be either genetic or congregate. If it comes from the birth-rate it is 
genetic, but is thereby in danger of stagnating through lack of new stimuli, 
or of degenerating through inbreeding. Congregate grouping is the product 
of immigration. Individuals are attracted to some point because of reports” 
of oil or gold discovery or some other physical feature, and establish primi- 
tive relationships. A congregate group is usually made up first of foot- 
loose individuals, impelled by wanderlust. Men generally preponderate in 


” Extensively developed by Ellen C. Semple in her Influences of Geographic Ena 
vironment (Holt, 1909). ! 


” Principles of Sociology (Macmillan, 1896), pp. 81 ff. 


SOCIAL GROUPS 245 


the founding of a congregate group, and hence the refining influence of 
women is missing. The congregate group is apt to be unorganized, restless, 
and anarchistic since it is composed of individualistic pioneers. 


GENETIC AND CONGREGATE GROUPING 


The ideal group is both genetic and congregate with genetic factors 
predominating. The combination gives needed organization and new 
stimuli, stability and mobility; but in all cases organization may well pre- 
ponderate over new stimuli, and stability over mobility, or else social gains 
will be dissipated. If the preponderance is very great, however, mental 
interaction is likely to be paralyzed. Organization is needed in order to 
maintain law and order. Since these may easily be synonymous with in- 
justice, freedom is needed for the play of new stimuli. Free speech and 
a free press governed by rules of fair play and good faith are essential to 
group progress. 

A variety of elements, unless too widely different in nature, is a boon 
to social progress for it makes interaction lively and furnishes that wealth 
of social contacts out of which stimuli are born and nurtured. But when 
the population elements are greatly different there is likely to be a surplus 
of conflict that is uncompromising and intolerant. 


TEMPORARY GROUPING 


Much grouping is for the moment. A conversational group may consist 
of two strangers met by chance on a street corner, whose contacts may 
consist of a few minutes of the simplest and most perfunctory talk. Still 
these persons are not wholly “strangers”; they probably know one an- 
other’s language, dress more or less similarly, have an elemental confidence 
in one another, and a mutually social spirit. Their conversation is made 
possible by the social elements in their common human nature and ex- 
periences. 

Temporary groups may spring up primarily on feeling and emotional 
bases. The crowd is the best known type of temporary grouping. As will 
be shown in the next chapter, a crowd is any number of persons in the 
physical presence of one another who have common objects of attention 
and who are governed more by their feelings than by careful thinking. 
Feeling is easily excited and the crowd quickly mobilizes itself into a mob 
Or experiences a panic. The mob seeks some person or object upon which 
to wreak vengeance; in a panic the group flees from something which has 
aroused fear. 


246 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


Temporary groups may exist on the basis of rational thought. The 
assembly is an illustration. In an assembly ideas are in conflict. A class- 
room recitation, a scientific conference, a committee meeting are samples 
of assemblies. There is no clear line of demarcation between them and 
crowds; in fact, they may easily degenerate into crowds. Occasionally in 
the sessions of the United States Senate members come to blows or even 
a grave-mannered church congregation breaks out in applause. 

Modern means of communication have brought people together mentally 
without congregating physically. The public, or the group without phys- 
ical presence, is an entity of increasing proportions. The number and 
variety of publics, of people who are made to feel and think alike because 
of reading more or less simultaneously about the same occurrences are on 
the increase, and public opinion gyrates with greater speed than ever be- 
fore. 

The transition from temporary to permanent groups is gradual, for 
the terms “temporary” and “permanent” are relative. In one sense there .. 
are no permanent groups, although it is common to refer to the family or 
nation as such. A given family may die out or scatter. Nations rise and 
fall. There is no reason, however, why groups might not live on per- 
manently, for it seems as though they are not subject to the biological laws — 
of birth, maturation, and decay. If their constituent members are wise © 
enough, that is, if they have social knowledge and foresight, or social 
telesis, to use an excellent term that Lester F. Ward originated," they 
may eliminate their destructive tendencies before these destroy them. 

There are at least fourteen different important types of permanent 
groups, ranging from an association of two persons by marriage to the 
world group. These types are the family, the play group, the neighbor- 
hood group, the school group, the occupational group, the employees’ 
and the employers’ groups, the fraternal, the political and governmental, 
the religious, the racial, and the sex groups, and the human species group. 

Permanent groups are the outgrowth of temporary groupings. The 
order of development is as follows: first, human needs; then a temporary 
group, sometimes a committee, to meet those needs; finally, if the needs 
remain active, the evolution of a permanent group or social organization. 
Out of countless temporary groupings, a few permanent types have 
attained historical prominence, but are continually subject to the laws of 
change and evolution. | 

A permanent group, such as an occupational one, by way of example, 
shows a history of the following order: human needs, crude ways of 

4 Dynamic Sociology (Appleton, 1915), Vol. 1227 ft. 


SOCIAL GROUPS 247 





meeting these needs, the invention of methods and tools, the rise of 
specialization, the conscious, unconscious, or accidental line of activity, 
the appearance of a definite occupational or caste culture, ethics, and 
organization. In primitive days men were hunters and fighters, and 
later, herdsmen ; women were untrained home-makers, crude hoe-culturists, 
and crass manufacturers. Under settled social conditions men trans- 
ferred their attention to hoe-culture and changed it into agriculture; 
and to manufacture and turned it into machino-facture 1 with its elaborate 
development of skilled, clerical, and entrepreneural positions. The 
higher needs of life, freedom from manual toil, the development of 
science, and the demand for specialization created the professions. 

Permanent groups vary from purely instinctive to socially purposwe.1* 
The best illustration of purely instinctive groups is found among animals, 
for instance, insect societies..* The primitive horde and the family are 
less instinctive than a hive of bees or a nest of wasps. The modern family 
including courtship is often instinctive, although showing signs of conscious 
purpose that are worthy of these institutions. The modern state is largely 
instinctive, although Germany in 1914 showed a powerful national 
purposiveness. Economic organizations, such as corporations and labor 
unions, are formed for definite purposes. Educational associations are 
strikingly telic. Purposive groups vary from organizations which 
struggle vigorously for their own advancement irrespective of the welfare 
of other groups or of society to those which wholeheartedly and unselfishly 
endeavor to serve wherever they may. Permanent groups, thus, begin with 
the purely instinctive aggregations at the lowest extremes of the social 
scale, include transitional types, and end with the purely telic groups with 
highly socialized purposes. Nation groups are still far below the highest 
stage of unselfish telic development, and hence the difficulty in establish- 
ing a stable world organization. 


PRIMARY GROUPS 


The most significant type of group is that originally called the primary 
group by Cooley, whose contribution in this connection to social psychology 
is of first magnitude.” The primary group is one “characterized by 
intimate face-to-face association and cooperation,” such as the family, 


™Cf. L. F. Ward, Pure Sociology (Macmillan, 1914), pp. 26, 32, 270. 

*J. M. Baldwin in The Individual and Society (Badger, 1911), pp. 36 ff., classifies 
groups as instinctive, spontaneous, and reflective. 

“Cf. W. M. Wheeler, Social Life Among the Insects (Harcourt, Brace: 1923), 

*C.H. Cooley, Social Organization (Scribners, 1909), Chs. III, IV. 


248 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


SUS Race RP D cL fi Wan nunc OSD ena ncn ssums DD 


play, and neighborhood groups. It is of primary importance, because 
‘t is fundamental “in forming the social nature and ideals of the 
individual,’?® because individuals live in the feeling of the whole group, 
and because it is from the group of the face-to-face type that one receives 
most of his social contacts, especially in the formative years. One's life 
of mental interaction is spent largely in primary groups. One’s standards 
are usually those which will give one “some desired place in the thought 
of others.” 

The parent who can choose the primary groups for his children to grow 
up in can forecast their future. Their development and ultimate achieve- 
ments are concealed not only in their inherited natures but equally in the 
nature of their primary groups. To choose constructive and wholesome 
groups for children to mature in is one of the greatest achievements of 
successful parenthood. 


THE LARGER PERMANENT GROUPS 


The larger grand divisions of permanent groups may be classified as 
either sects, castes, classes, or states.’ (1) The sect is a group of 
persons who differ markedly but who are united by a common ideal — 
and faith—such as religious denominations and political parties. A sect, 
freed from its narrower religious sense, arises frequently in the form of 
propaganda movements. It is likely to be intense; and its leaders, to be 
motivated by determination and courage. Because of its feeling and 
emotional bias, a sect is apt to be characterized by narrow-mindedness 
and intolerance, at least, until it becomes socially recognized. 

(2) The caste is a group set apart by occupation or responsibility or 
legal privilege or wealth so that its members show themselves non-associa- 
tive and non-intermarrying with respect to outsiders. In India, for 
example, custom and heredity autocratically put people into castes where 
they must stay. In England, for example, many of the wealthy have 
established virtual castes for themselves. In both illustrations, purity of 
stock is maintained: in one case by objective and custom fiat, and in the 
other by intracaste control. 

Wealth establishes castes, which are exclusive except as outsiders 
acquire wealth. The hereditarily rich caste, however, remains suspicious 
for a long time of the newly made or fortune-made rich. The “four 


** Cooley, ibid., p. 23. ) 
* Following continental writers, such as Tarde, L’opinion et la foule (Paris, 
1901), pp. 177 ff., and Sighele, Psychologie des sectes (Paris, 1898), pp. 45 ff. 


SOCIAL GROUPS 249 


hundred” maintain a strict code that keeps out all except those who by 
wealth can qualify, and which forces its membership to assume an air of 
superiority toward all outsiders, thus doing violence to the basic principles 
of democracy within which it may operate. 

The older professions have developed a semblance of the caste principle. 
Consider how difficult it is for a man to change from one recognized 
profession to another line of activity, and what criticism falls upon the 
clergyman who changes to the insurance business, upon the lawyer who 
shifts to bricklaying, upon the teacher who becomes a dairyman. It is 
disgraceful to change from a higher to a so-called lower calling, even 
though a mistake was made in the initial choice of an occupation. It is 
even a questioned procedure for a person who has reached middle life to 
shift from a lower to a so-called higher calling. Nevertheless, this 
inelasticity in public opinion is on the whole justifiable, despite the fact 
that in the broad sense it creates castes. 

(3) The class possesses a psychological bond that is found in a unity of 
interests. The class is less precise in its limits, but more “formidably 
belligerent” in its attitudes than the caste. Observe the outstanding class 
divisions of the day, such as the distinction between the laboring and 
capitalistic classes, with their bickerings, strifes, intrigues, and underlying 
hatreds. Segregation and sense of superiority characterize the “‘class.”’ 
The recent rise of “blocs” in Congress illustrates well the competitive 
nature of classes as compared with the more non-competitive castes. With 
classes, conflict is “inter ;’’ while with a caste, it is chiefly “intra.” In very 
old countries of the monarchical type a class may become deeply intrenched 
in the customs and develop a caste-like nature. 

(4) Nation states are the most extensive group organizations with 
powerful prerogatives that have yet evolved. A state is characterized by 
common bonds of language, national values, and national prestige. 
National loyalty and national conflicts will be considered in a later 
chapter. The natural climax of the state idea 1s now taking torm in a 
world association which among large permanent groups will ultimately 
perhaps attain the most prominent place. 


SOCIAL SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 


By interstimulation the members of a group develop, not only a self- 
consciousness, a social consciousness, but also a social self-consciousness,1® 
which is one of the culminating points of socialization. Each individual 


*F. H. Giddings, Principles of Soctology, p. 137. 


250 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


not only becomes aware of himself and of his group and develops personal 
opinions like those of his fellows, but each becomes aware of his fellows’ 
opinions and feelings, and thus may help to swell the rising tides of public 
opinion and emotion. New means of communication enable persons a 
thousand miles apart to think and feel alike, but far more important, 
to know that everyone is thinking and feeling just the same at that 
particular time about particular occurrences. It is this outstanding fact 
which distinguishes groups, even the largest groups, and makes of them 
subjects of fascinating study ; they afford an amazing interplay of lead- 
ership and social control. 


COMMUNITY SPIRIT 


Social self-consciousness is partly synonymous with community spirit. 
Community means common attitudes, a common understanding of dif- 
ferent attitudes, common social values, and communion.!® It involves 
participation and the rise of social responsibility. The community organ- . 
ization movement 2° is psychologically sound because of its emphasis upon 
participation as the chief means of expanding the ethical responsibility of 
individuals, and at the same time of magnifying the spirit of democracy.”* 
Community may easily arise where a few congenial persons are gathered — 
together, but it is difficult to secure in a city where millions live. The 
concept of world community is even more idealistic, but is scientifically 
sound, judging by the trend of social evolution. 


GROUP QUOTIENTS 


Since a person is indebted so fundamentally to groups, since the number 
and quality of his social stimuli are determined by them, it would be 
important to measure the creative influence of different groups upon him. 
One might divide the amount of time he gives in a week to each of the 
various groups in which he participates weekly by the total amount of 
time that he gives to all groups in the same period of time.”* The result 


Cf RM. Maclver, Community (Macmillan, 1917), Book Il hae 

® One of the best definitions of a community is that it “consists of a group or 
company of people living fairly close together in a more or less compact, contiguous 
territory, who are coming to act together in the chief concerns of life.’ By R. E. 
Hieronymous, quoted by Stuart A. Queen, “What is a Community?”’, Jour. of 
Social Forces, 1: 375. 

* Five basic principles or phases of community organization have been stated by 
C. E. Rainwater, namely, participation, correlation, development, self-supporting, 
and democracy. Community Organization (monograph, Southern California Soci- 
ological Society, 1919, Los Angeles), p. 3. 

“Cf. E. W. Burgess, “The Study of the Delinquent as a Person,” Amer. Jour. of 
Sociology, XXVIII: 666-667. 


SOCIAL GROUPS 251 


would be a rough quantitative group quotient. By taking a large number 
of people and finding out their group quotients for any particular group, 
such as the religious group or family, it would be possible to work out 
quantitative norms, with which any given person could compare his own 
quotient for that particular group. F. Stuart Chapin suggests finding out 
the average attendance at a group’s meeting for a term of years, distribu- 
tion and average financial support of the members, active membership on 
committees, on how many committees, for how many years, and active 
committee chairmanships as a basis of measuring personal relationship to 
group life.2* He advances this hypothesis: ‘‘There is a direct correla- 
tion between the number of groups that the average person may belong to 
and the intensity of his participation in each group activity as indicated by 
such objective facts as regularity of attendance, membership on com- 
mittees, and financial support.” The suggestion is also made that group 
participation for each person has its saturation point. Dr. Chapin believes 
that this saturation point rests upon a person’s range of elasticity for group 
participation which can be measured.** Such data would help in working 
out a quantitative group quotient. 

Qualitative group quotients for a person would be more worth while 
and also far more difficult to obtain. An approach might be made by 
determining a rating for the various offices in groups as well as active 
and passive membership and then “scoring” a large number of represen- 
tative persons in a given community. A person could divide his own 
score by the medium score for representative persons in order to obtain a 
qualitative quotient. The real group quotient that is needed is one showing 
the quality of social contacts and stimuli afforded a person by each of his 
groups. The relationships between a person’s intelligence quotient and 
his group quotient represent another field of research. 


PRINCIPLES 


1. Group life enables human individuals to survive and furnishes the 
stimuli whereby they may develop into persons. 

2. The prolongation of infancy under group protection and stimulation re- 
duces the need for inherited rigidity (“instincts”) to a minimum and 
provides for an unending range of acquired development (habits). 

3. The impact of group life and traditions upon the new-born infant is 
almost overwhelming. 

* Cf. F. Stuart Chapin, “Leaders and Group Activity,” Jour. of Applied Sociology, 


VIII: 141-145. 
Tbid., p. 144. 


252 


FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





4. 


Through groups, cultures are transmitted, thus freeing each person 
from having to start at the beginning of civilization and create 
language and other mental tools anew. 


. Groups are facilitated by the influence of physical and geographic 


factors, such as fertility of soil and climatic conditions. 


. Groups are either congregate or genetic, but generally both. 
. Groups are either temporary or permanent, the latter being relatively 


few in type, and representing outgrowths of the former. 


. Inventions in methods of communication have made possible the for- 


mation of powerful groups without physical presence. 


. Permanent groups range from those purely instinctive, such as an 


insect society, to those socially purposive such as a city planning 
commission. 


. Large permanent groups are either sects, castes, classes, or states. 

. A “world group” is the culmination of the group concept. 

. The members of groups possess social self-consciousness. 

. The essence of group life is a community of spirit and reaction. 

. A person’s relation to different groups may be estimated by the use of 


group quotients. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. Define a group. 
. Why is it necessary that a human individual grow up within social 


groups? 


. Why is a person immeasureably indebted to “group transmission ?”’ 


Why is response to group stimuli a survival trait? 
Why has group life made prolongation of infancy possible? 


. Explain the term, “a group made person.” 
. Enumerate the differences between genetic and congregate groupings. 
. Distinguish in several ways between purely instinctive and socially 


purposive groups. 


. Compare sects and classes. 
. Under what circumstances may caste conditions arise in a democracy? 
. Distinguish between social consciousness and social self-consciousness. 


PROBLEMS 


. In how many permanent groups do you regularly participate? 
. What is the relation of the number of your permanent groups to the 


number of your temporary groups? 


SOCIAL GROUPS 253 


3. What percentage of your groups did you enter by rational choice? 

4. How far would you consider yourself group made and how far self 
made? 

5. What is mass attention? 

6. In what ways can mass attention be developed ? 

7. In order to get the best possibilities for group growth, what should 
be the proportion between the genetic and the congregate factors in 
group constituency ? 

8. Can you formulate a law regarding the relation of communication to 
group formation? 

g. Can you suggest a way for estimating the amount of community 
spirit existing in a group at a given time? 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Clow, F. R., Principles of Sociology with Educational Applications 
(Macmillan, 1920), Chs. V, VI. 

Cooley, C. H., Social Organization (Scribners, 1909). 

Ellwood, C. A., Soctology in its Psychological Aspects (Appleton, 1912), 
Chs. XV. 

Follett, M. P., The New State (Longmans, Green: 1920). 

Giddings, F. H., Principles of Sociology (Macmillan, 1896), Bk. II, Ch. 
II. 

Ginsberg, Morris, The Psychology of Society (Dutton, 1921), Ch. IV. 

Lindeman, E. C., The Community (Association Press, 1921). 

McDougall, William, The Group Mind (Putnam, 1920). 

Maclver, R. M., Community (Macmillan, 1917), Ch. II. 


CHAPTER XXII 
CROWDS AND MOBS 


HE crowd is a common yet dangerous form of intersocial stimula- 

tion. Nearly everyone is subject to its influence, especially the young 
and all who do not have the scientific attitude. Crowds are whirlpools of 
group life. They are effervescent centers of a common affective and 
social nature. Wherever a few persons are gathered together, the elements 
of a crowd exist. When large cities develop, and means of transportation 
increase,*crowd conditions multiply and the desires for social response 
and new experience assume superficial and reckless expressions. 


HETEROGENEOUS CROWDS 


ry 


Some crowds are heterogeneous, that is, are composed of persons who 
at a particular moment possess diverse aims. A number of persons at a 
busy street corner constitutes a heterogeneous group, for they have 
varied purposes and are going in different directions. Ina railroad station 
heterogeneity prevails, although at train times, small homogeneous groups 
try to crowd nast the gateman, or gather to meet incoming trains. These 
little whirlpools quickly disappear and heterogeneity again reigns. 


HOMOGENEOUS CROWDS 


The crowd may also be homogeneous.? Its members have a common 
aim, and further, each member is aware that the other individuals are 
stirred by the same feelings as is he. The homogeneity vibrates chiefly in 
terms of feeling. A crowd, as the term is used here, is a number of per- 
sons in the physical presence of each other, who are displaying their 
feelings more than usual. 

Feelings tend to submerge reason. Crowds act quickly on inherited 

*E. A. Ross, Social Psychology (Macmillan, 1908), Ch. III. 

*Le Bon (The Crowd, London, 1903) has defined a crowd in a very broad way 
and applied it to the masses of people, to the proletariat; he then assumes a Tory 
attitude rather than a scientific one toward the masses. It is better to apply the term 


crowd simply to temporary groups motivated chiefly by their feelings, irrespective 
of social classes. 


254 


CROWDS AND MOBS asc 


feeling bases, but reason slowly if at all. Crowds are passional. It is 
easy, therefore, to understand the phrase, the crowd 1s reversionary. The 
tendency of a crowd to revert to primitive methods is natural. To attempt 
to prevent a crowd from resorting to primitive ways is thus to work 
against primitive nature. It is easier not to let a crowd form at all than 
to try to stop it from reverting to low feeling planes. 

A crowd of human beings is closely related to a herd of cattle, a covey 
of birds, a shoal of fish. There are the same standard responses to danger 
signals, the same casual leadership, the same stampeding. In their simpler 
elements crowd characteristics can be studied by analyses of animal groups. 

The homogeneous crowd must have a leader. In times of danger its 
members move frantically until a leader appears. A bleacher crowd of 
college people is helpless without a yell leader. If none is present, the 
call is made for one, demanding that some one stand up and lead. When 
a crowd is to do something and there is no leader present, it is helpless. 
Various members are singled out with the command, “you lead.” 

The members of a crowd experience a heightened state of suggestibility. 
The preponderance of feelings over reason is one explanation. The 
excitement that is apt to prevail throws people off their guard. The 
force of numbers overwhelms the individual. Time for reflecting and 
judging is wanting. Only a part of each individual is functioning, and 
that, in a one-sided way. 

The ordinary person in a crowd suffers a weakening of his sense of 
responsibility. The anonymity makes the individual feel that he can do 
anything and “‘get away with it.” The processes and results are the same 
as in the large corporate group or the nation group, which is known some- 
times to be conscienceless. 

Freedom of speech is ill tolerated in a crowd; anyone who speaks con- 
trary to the prevailing opinion is hooted. A crowd of capitalists would 
refuse to listen to the harangue of a bolshevist ; and a crowd of bolshevists 
would not sit supinely under the lashing of a capitalist. A crowd, not 
being able to reason much, cannot be expected to understand abstractions. 

Crowds are highly egoistic. Listen to the ordinary song of a crowd 
and its self-centered nature is usually evident. The refrain often takes 
some form of a simple, selfish idea, such as “Who are we, who are we, 
we are it.’ The crowd sings its own praises; but if an individual were 
to brag, the crowd would ostracize him. Whenever a crowd “yells,” 
it often applauds itself vigorously, especially 1f it be directed by an ex- 
perienced “‘yell leader.”” The fact that a yell leader can get a crowd to 
applaud its own doings, testifies to crowd egoism. 


256 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


 —————————— 


Crowds are fickle. Napoleon appreciated this point. “Your majesty,” 
exclaimed an aid-de-camp on one occasion, “hear the crowds cheering for 
you.” Without smiling Napoleon replied, “They would cheer just as 
loudly if I were going to the guillotine.” 

Unreasoning, they are easily turned hither and thither by any “catchy” 
slogan. Their feeling elements have no stability and hence their depend- 
ability grades low. It is almost impossible to foretell crowd develop- 
ments or achievements; whatever else they may be, they are likely to be 
fleeting. 

Moreover, decisions that are made wholly in a crowd are undependable. 
A person who makes an important decision while under the influence of 
the crowd has a hard struggle before him, unless he has a store of 
habits in harmony with the decision. A decision made in a crowd is apt to 
be feeling-made; one who takes a vital step in this way usually needs the 
support of sincere, thoughtful, and helpful associates,—until he can 
develop a stock of habitual reactions to sustain the decision. 

More wild enthusiasm for a given project can be created in a crowd 
than anywhere else. Such enthusiasm, however, generally vanishes 
swiftly, for it lacks depth. The reaction to it, moreover, is often 
debilitating. After the World War ended and the enthusiasm for 
democracy, much of which was crowd-made, died down, the reaction in 
our country toward selfishness, greed, and arrogance, was widely evident. 

When Josey declares that “the members of a crowd, animated by a 
common purpose, seem lifted up and ennobled by a power thet is not 
purely their own,”’* he forgets that under crowd conditions purposes 
are as often destructive as constructive. Crowd contagion may be good 
or evil, depending on the goal to which it is directed by the leaders. eat 
is bad to ‘catch’ disease, but not bad to ‘catch’ good health. All depends 
on what is caught.” This statement has a measure of truth, but overlooks 
the fact that “catching” social visions may be a temporary matter. They 
do not become realized in practice until supported by habits. 

To get people together in a crowd offers a quick way to unify them. 
But the charlatan and mountebank are prone to manipulate people through 
crowd influence, whereas the cultured man confines himself to addressing 
assemblies. The educated person who tries to harangue a crowd usually 
belittles himself without reaping any good results. 


Usually a banquet develops the crowd spirit; feasting together produces 7 
good feeling and a jovial mood. When joyous feelings are running high, — 


leaders in the form of a toastmaster and speakers selected beforehand 


* Race and National Solidarity (Scribners, 1923), p. 101. 


CROWDS AND MOBS oo7 


appear and propose a campaign, call for subscriptions, or otherwise “sign 
up’ the feasters. Moreover the guests would consider themselves ingrates 
if they refused to respond to a request from their host. 

A revival meeting illustrates another type of crowd reaction. Expectancy 
is aroused by the evangelist’s reputation. The singing and prayer bring 
people into a feeling of unity. Crowd contagion is developed by the 
speaker’s appeals. His references to “mother,” “home,” and “children,” 
bring up reminiscences of emotional moments in the past. Sympathy, 
tenderness, sentiments of olden days are stimulated, and then the appeal 
is clinched in the name of religion, and “decisions” are made and converts 
announced.* The psychology of the revival has been analyzed by many 
authorities, all of whom agree that crowd contagion and suggestion are 
fundamental phases. These factors are apparently utilized without the 
evangelist and others who are in charge being aware of the role played 
by them. The real function of the revival is not that of securing sudden 
conversions without any previous preparation therefor, but rather that of 
bringing crowd conditions to bear upon individuals and of urging them to 
make decisions that selfishness or inertia would prevent. When an 
individual refuses to heed ‘“‘the still small voice of conscience and God,” 
then crowd conditions may be invoked. 

“Gang” behavior affords interesting crowd phenomena. The gang 
is a relatively permanent group, but one of such elemental and primitive 
traits that it resembles a temporary crowd. Its subservience to a leader, 
its feeling bases, its use of “might” as the means of determining right, 
its fickleness, its inconsistencies—all these are crowd characteristics. In 
addition it is slippery because it is a primitive group trying to survive 
under the changed conditions of modern civilization. It must fight for 
‘its life, since it is a survival in part of outworn behavior principles. Its 
struggles to exist, display conflicts between primitive and modern levels 
of group standards. When hard pressed the gang resorts to mob behavior. 
‘It becomes a brute with its back against a wall, gnashing its teeth, and 
resorting to any means whatsoever in its defense. It recognizes no 
moral or social standards or responsibility. 

The clique exemplifies many crowd characteristics. It is dominated by 
feelings organized into prejudices, by irrationalities, and by superstitions. 
The members take pride in foolish lingo, such as all being descended from 

*“Most religious conversions are accomplished by the crowd,” says E. D. Martin, 
The Behavior of Crowds, p. 86. He is using the term, conversion, in the popular 


sense. 
*See F. M. Davenport, Primitive Traits in Religious Revivals (Macmillan, 1910) ; 


G. A. Coe, The Spiritual Life (Curtis & Jennings, 1900), pp. 141-146, 


2s8. + FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


“the same sacred cow,” or in swearing to uphold some nonsense formula. 
Narrow pride and a wide selfishness constitute the interactions of the 
clique with other groups. 

Boys form gangs and girls specialize on cliques or “sets.” The clique 
is “exclusive, undemocratic.” It has no organization, leaders, history. 
“The set (or clique) snubs its rivals; the gang fights them.”® The reason 
for the lack of organization in a clique is that it is negative rather than 
positive like a boy’s gang.’ A clique is noteworthy because certain 
‘ndividuals are excluded from it. It has “no positive mission of accom- 
plishment like the gang which sets out to rob orchards, fight other gangs, 
and so on.” Its appeal lies “in offering an intimacy from which others 
are excluded.’® It is therefore more self-centered than a gang. 


CROWD MULTIPLICATION 


Civilization means multiplication of crowds. The automobile and street 
car bring people together, and the newspaper, telegraph, and radio spread 
announcements, making possible the temporary grouping of thousands on 
short notice. Stadiums increase from ten, fifty, to one hundred thousand 
capacity. Automobile races and football games bring together multi- 
tudes. Large cities create propinquity and unlimited possibilities of crowd 
formation. 

Speed of living and the multiplication of stimuli with little chance to 
reflect, further the crowd emphasis on feelings and its repudiation of 
reasoning. Thus, the social soil is a hotbed for crowd life. Education is 
doing much to offset this tendency, but is still far from measuring up to 
its task. The social problem of the day, according to one writer, is found 
in “the growing habit of behaving as crowds.” ‘Our society is becoming 
a veritable babel of gibbering crowds,” with every interest creating 
propagandist and partisan crowd spirit.® 


CROWD RIVALRY 


Many of the evils of crowd phenomena arise from crowd rivalry. In 
a contest in which one group is pitted against another, crowd contagion 
becomes strong. One crowd strives to outdo its competitors, not because 


°j. A. Puffer, The Boy and his Gang (Houghton Mifflin: 1912), p. 74. 
oo out by E. A. Ross in an unpublished manuscript. 
1a. 
Pa a A. Ross, Social Psychology, Ch. III, and Ross, Foundations of Sociology 


CROWDS AND MOBS {ihees 





of genuine interest in its goal, but for the sake of “victory” and of the 
consequent opportunities to gloat or “crow” over the defeated crowd. The 
victorious crowd in an athletic or political contest takes unconcealed pride 
in displaying an inflated crowd egoism. 


SPECTATOR CROWDS 


There are spectator crowds and participator crowds.’° The spectator 
group may be either single or double minded; it may be unitary or 
bi-partisan. Spectator crowds are in constant danger of degenerating into 
mobs of participator crowds. 

An athletic contest brings out two gigantic spectator crowds. If the 
contest is close, the members of both groups will likely give way to 
their feelings and revert to blindly biased and almost savage partisanship— 
forgetting that the fundamental element in the contest is to afford physical 
training to all the members of both teams and exhibitions of skill for 
the enjoyment of the onlookers. The evils of intercollegiate athletics 
thrive partly because of the demands of spectator crowds expressing 
themselves in a desire for victory at almost any cost, and in a variety 
of recidivistic tendencies. There would be no intercollegiate football 
games were it not for the presence of spectators—hence the responsibility 
of spectator crowds is great. If the evil influences of crowd contagion 
causes students literally to hate competing education institutions, to 
commit marauding expeditions on them, and to keep up a running fire of 
insult, then athletics and education alike have been profaned. 


MOBS 


A mob is a crowd in a very high state of suggestsbility. It is charac- 
terized by frenzied behavior. It is a crowd that has become frantic. The 
term, mob, is from the same root word as mobile, and designates a crowd 
that is rapidly moving, not always in the pursuit of a given object, but 
one that easily shifts its attention. 

The ease with which a crowd may be turned into a mob on a moment’s 
notice is significant. The point is well illustrated by the experiences 
of William McDougall in Borneo, who witnessed a crowd of 5000 primi- 
tives turned adventitiously and almost instantly into an angry mob of 
uncontrollable fury. 


; See the discussion by G. E. Howard, “Social Psychology of the Spectator,” 
Amer. Jour. of Sociology, XVIII: 33-50. 





260 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


Representatives of all the tribes of a large district of Sarawak had been 
brought together by the resident magistrate for the purpose of strengthening 
friendly relations and cementing peace between the various tribes. All went 
smoothly, and the chiefs surrounded by their followers were gathered together 
in a large hall, rudely constructed of timber, to make public protestations of 
friendship. An air of peace and goodwill pervaded the assembly, until a 
small piece of wood fell from the roof upon the head of one of the leading 
chiefs, making a slight wound from which the blood trickled. Only the 
‘mmediate neighbors of this chief observed the accident or could perceive its 
effects; nevertheless in the space of a few seconds a wave of angry emotion 
swept over the whole assembly, and a general and bloody fight would have at 
once commenced, but that the Resident had insisted upon all weapons being 
left in the boats on the river 200 yards away. The great majority of the 
crowd rushed headlong to fetch their weapons from their boats, while the few 
who remained on the ground danced in fury or rushed to and fro gesticulating 
wildly. Happily the boats were widely scattered along the banks of the river, 
so that it was possible for the Resident, by means of persuasion, threats, and 
a show of armed force, to prevent the hostile parties coming together again 
with their weapons in hand.” 


The mob is a participator crowd. It is not necessarily a group of 
ignorant or essentially wicked persons, but often is composed of ordinarily 
intelligent persons who for the time being have resigned their personal 
standards. The mob is a monster, possessing gigantic power which 
causes it to throb throughout its being. It is a tornado, using its pent-uf 
forces irresponsibly and ruthlessly. 

Mobs are groups that frantically rush toward or attempt to escape from 
an object or person. They are motivated by hate or fear. In the firs 
case the group rushes toward somebody; in the second, away from some 
thing, creating a pantc. Mob spirit is usually manifested at a lynching 
and a panic sometimes occurs in a burning building wherein people are con 
gregated. Pogroms, witchcraft persecutions, and religious persecutions 
also represent mob spirit. Mantas, crazes, and orgies are modified form 
of mob behavior. 


LYNCHING 


Lynching behavior is aroused by an arresting act of gross misconduct b: 
some individual. A basic factor is the feeling that the courts will mov 
too slowly, that the guilty party may escape punishment, and that th 
offense is so serious as to merit impromptu treatment. The offence : 
generally personal and against the body of the victim. The mob spir 
arises out of enraged feelings, demands a leader, and is greatly multiplie 
by crowd contagion. The alleged offender is hunted like a dog and whe 


' 


“The Group Mind (Putnam, 1920), pp. 37, 38. 


CROWDS AND MOBS 261 


caught is given no quarter. At this point the pent-up and multiplied 
feelings of the mob burst with cyclonic fury upon their victim. All 
reason has fled, and nothing remains but brute force gloating over its 
prey, and vengeance. The sight of the alleged guilty party, and even his 
agonies under torture, act as stimuli to more fiendish deeds. 

The utter irrationality of the lynching mob is shown by the incident, 
referred to in an earlier chapter, that occurred in Omaha in 1919, when the 
mayor of that city attempted to quiet the mob that was searching for an 
alleged Negro offender, and suffered the experience of having the mob 
turn upon him and attempt to hang him—the chief executive of a metro- 
politan city and the elected representative of law and order. It is clear, 
therefore, that such a mob is a relic of barbarism; it has no useful function 
in a democratic state that is built upon principles of justice. 


NIGHT RIDING MOBS 


Ku Klux Klan activities easily degenerate into mob rule. The Klan 
in resorting to night riding and the hood gives each member an anonymity 
which furthers irresponsible conduct. The tool which the Klan uses, 
namely, intimidation, is a psychological element exceedingly dangerous, 
and unamenable to reason. It creates fear and results in panic. Thus, 
the purposes of the Klan, are doubly subject to mob abuse. As soon as 
the Klan begins pursuit of an “enemy,” it easily develops all the traits 
of a lynching mob. 


POGROMS 


Pogroms, a form of race riot, which have been discussed in an earlier 
chapter as a form of “craze” are also illustrative of mob rule. In Poland 
and the Ukraine the Jews occupying a middle position between the poverty- 
stricken peasants beneath and the autocratic nobility above have lived in 
constant fear of mob rioting. 

Under these circumstances, pogroms have broken upon the Jews 
with the fury of a tornado. Without warning, Jewish property has 
been destroyed, Jewish homes burned, the women ravaged, the aged and 
the children killed. Mutilations and atrocities beyond description have 
been committed. In a few days the storm passes, the terror-stricken 
survivors make the best of their condition, and the peasants return to 
their accustomed tasks as though nothing unusual had occurred. Mary 
Antin referring to children being torn limb from limb before their mother’s 
eyes, and to other atrocities, significantly says: “People who saw such 


262 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


pan Lt 1 LC a SS 
things never smiled any more, no matter how long they lived; and 
sometimes their hair turned white in a day, and some people became 
insane on the spot.’”? 

Race rjots in the United States between whites and negroes furnish 
important data. As a rule these riots are preceded by reports of an 
attack upon a white woman or girl by a Negro, and then the mob fury 
breaks. The riot usually lasts until the alleged offender has been caught 
and dealt with summarily as by lynching. Widespread riots are illustrated 
by the outbreak in 1917 in East St. Louis which lasted five or six days, 
creating panic, destruction of property, and murder. The Chicago riot 
of July 27—August 2, 1919, was unusual in that it was preceded by no 
reports of attacks on white women. A clash between the whites and 
blacks on the shore of Lake Michigan at 29th Street included stone throw- 
ing, the drowning of a Negro boy, and the refusal of a policeman to 
arrest a white man accused by Negroes of stoning the boy. 


Within two hours the riot was in full sway, had scored its second fatality, 
and was spreading throughout the south and southwest parts of the city... . 
(It) swept uncontrolled through parts of the city for four days. By August 2 
it had yielded to the forces of law and order, and on August 8 the state militia 
withdrew. ... Of the thirty-eight killed, fifteen were whites and twenty-. 
three negroes; of 537 injured, 178 were whites, 342 were negroes, and the race. 
of seventeen was not recorded.” 


Beneath this race riot as well as others, and especially of pogroms, there 
are rampant race prejudices. No adequate means of social control or of 
social self-control had been developed to meet biases and misunderstand- 
ings which had long been smoldering. In a sense a race riot never comes 
suddenly ; it always gives long-suffering warnings that it is about to break 
forth. When reason and justice are asleep, mob spirit rises. 


WITCHCRAFT PERSECUTIONS 


The burning of witches at the stake illustrates mob violence of the worst 
sort. It is usually perpetrated under conditions of superstition and gross 


, Lhe Promised Land (Houghton Mifflin, 1912), p. 8. 

Chicago Commission on Race Relations, The Negro m Chicago (Univ. of Chicago 
Press, 1922), p. 1. This document, it may be added, is exceedingly valuable for 
studying the social psychology of mob action in all its phases, and for studying public 
opinion in race relations. 


CROWDS AND MOBS 263 





ignorance, and hence its viciousness is partly accounted for. A person, no 
matter how innocent, if singled out by ecclesiastical authorities as a witch, 
becomes at once the victim of public vengeance of the mob type. The 
stimulus is often religious, for the witch is considered the servant of 
Satan and hence one to be destroyed. 


POLITICAL AND INDUSTRIAL MOBS 


Political and industrial mobs are usually composed of people battling 
for a principle. Their primitive sense of injustice has been provoked into 
anger. Crowd contagion does the rest. The storming of the Bastile 
in 1789 was done by a mob which expressed the public desire for social, 
economic, and political justice.* Industrial mobs, likewise, have 
generally represented a principle, a desire for more power, a demand for 
bread and justice. Like political mobs they are often led by agitators 
and composed of uneducated people mad with rage at mistreatment. 


PANICS 


In the case of the panic the attempt is to escape impending danger. In 
its elemental form a panic is best illustrated by a stampeded herd of 
cattle, wild horses, or elephants.’* In the Iroquois Theatre disaster in 
Chicago the cry of “Fire” sent a multitude of people toward the wholly 
inadequate exits and individuals piled up, trampling down and smother- 
ing those beneath to death. The desire for security caused otherwise 
considerate men to climb over helpless women and children until the 
exits became blocked with jumbled and dying humanity. The group in 
cases of this kind is composed of persons who are chiefly strangers to 
each other. The security impulses being stimulated by a wild emotional 
contagion are not offset by any sense of social responsibility and hence 
there is utter disregard of human lives. In a panic everybody is struck 
simultaneously with the acutest attack possible of self-consciousness. 
Napoleon was correct when he instructed his officers to tell their men 
of danger beforehand in a quiet, non-exaggerated way, thus enabling 
them to steel themselves against fear and to withstand panics. 


™ See Carlyle’s French Revolution, Book V, Ch. VII. 
* William McDougall, The Group Mind (Putnam, 1920), pp. 36-38. 


264 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


SR crams acre A Ded a nvaaeoamnnor cs ocan  tn RST 


MANIAS 


Manias, crages, and orgies represent modified forms of mob behavior. 


In the case of a mania, people are aroused to want the same thing at the 
same time. A bargain counter sale often generates a mob in which the 


belief is current that the number of the desired object is less than the 
number of purchasers. In a “run on a bank” a panic takes place; fear of 
not getting their money rules people. The supply of money is thought to 
be less than the demand, social interest is almost nil, and the security 
impulse dominates. In a craze, as referred to in an earlier chapter, excite- 
ment runs high and produces all sorts of irrational attempts to get some- 
thing for nothing, or at least before some one else gets it. Orgies are 
generally connected with the use of alcoholic liquors. They are accom- 
panied by bestial and immoral conduct. A false sense of sociability and 
of the means for providing it leads to the excessive use of intoxicating 
liquor which promptly produces debauchery. 


THE MOB CURVE 


In mobs, particularly in those where anger is the driving factor, there 
is a noticeable mob curve. The curve rises irregularly until the objective 
of the mob is reached. It hovers at a dizzy height of brutal vengeance 
until its victims have been punished and tortured; after which, it falls 
rapidly, almost perpendicular. The panic curve is similar, although its 
sudden fall is brought about by the results of stampeding. In the mob 
curve the effects of group contagion are easily seen. When the contagion 
bubble bursts the mob spirit flattens out. 


CONTROL OF MOBS 


The problem of controlling mobs is similar to that of controlling fire, 
that is, it is easier to prevent them than to end them after they have once 
gained momentum. A mob in full fury will not listen to reason; it can be 
stopped only by force, by water power ; or aS an enemy army, by bayonets, 
shrapnel, and poison gas. The problem is really that of getting at the 
generating conditions. By preventing injustice and by furthering con- 
structive measures of justice, mob action may be reduced to a minimum, 
The problem is both personal and social. Human beings who are educated 
to control their emotions and desires, who have built socialized habits 


and attitudes, and who assume social responsibilities in orderly ways are 


CROWDS AND MOBS 265 


——$_$_— 


generally immune against mob contagion,—for example, a community 
where law and order and justice prevail, where racial, religious, and 
political differences are studied rationally and handled by sober judgment. 
By anticipating problems of this character, communities may safeguard 
themselves against mob rule. With scientific methods of handling social 
problems, with freedom for the development of constructive impulses and 
desires, and with a socialized atmosphere permeating all group life, mobs 
disappear. 


Ls | 


ON An Aw 


PRINCIPLES 


. Crowds, the most common form of temporary grouping, are either 


heterogeneous or homogeneous, depending on their range ol 
purposes. 


. In a homogeneous crowd, feelings run high, reason is submerged, a 


leader is demanded, a heightened state of suggestibility exists, free- 
dom of speech is tabooed, wild enthusiasm may be aroused, but 
fickleness prevails. 


. Crowds are either spectator groups, that is, onlookers, or participator 


groups, that is, mobs. 


. Multiplication of means of communication and increased Elna) of 


transportation make crowd formation easy. 


. Mobs are crowds in a very high state of suggestibility, and motivated 


usually by anger, but occasionally by fear, creating a panic. 


. The mob curve rises by rapid degrees to a giddy height where it hangs 


until the mob is appeased, and then it falls abruptly. 


. The best way to control a mob is to prevent it by means of socialized 


habits and social justice. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. Define a crowd. 
. Are the people in a railroad station a heterogeneous or homogeneous 


crowd? 


. Why does the crowd generally have a leader? 


Why is one’s individuality wilted in a dense throng? 


. Why is the crowd-self ephemeral ? 
. Explain: A crowd is recidivistic. 


Why does a crowd refuse to tolerate freedom of speech? 


. Why is the crowd-self irrational ? 


266 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


PRSINSESAOA UN NSEN, W lesvee Cask J Rss Rimmel reece Sse mon en sie mE 


g. What are the chief differences between a spectator crowd and a 
participator crowd? 

10. Compare a lynching mob with a panic-stricken mob. 

11. What is meant by the mob curve? 

12, What are the best ways of controlling a mob? 


PROBLEMS 


1. Why do feelings run through a crowd more readily than ideas? 
2. In order to unify people why is it necessary to touch the chord of 
feeling? 
3. Explain: “In a psychological crowd people are out of themselves.” 
4. What are the advantages of organized cheering? the disadvantages ? 
5. What effect will your study of the social psychology of the crowd 
have upon your attitude toward the crowd? 
6. If you have been in a mob, what was your experience? 
7. Is a holiday jam in a railroad station a mob ? 
8. Is the social psychology of a mob of Hottentots the same as the 
social psychology of a mob of college professors? 
g. Where can the blame for mob action justly be placed? 
10. What are the best means of bringing a lynching mob to a rational 
point of view? 
11. What is the best way to prevent a panic in case of fire in a large 
auditorium filled with people? 
12. “Is a vote taken at a mass meeting a genuinely democratic act?” 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Christensen, Arthur, Politics and Crowd-Morality (tran. by E. English, 
publ. by Dutton, n.d.). 

Cooley, C. H., Social Organization (Scribners, 1909), Ch. XIV. 

Conway, Martin, The Crowd in Peace and War (Longmans, Green: 
IQI5). 

Galsworthy, John, The Mob (Scribners, 1905). 

Howard, G. E., “Social Psychology of the Spectator,” Amer. Jour. of 
Sociology, XVIII :33-50. 

Le Bon, Gustave, The Crowd (London, 1903). 

Martin, E. D., The Behavior of Crowds (Harper, 1920). 

McDougall, William, The Group Mind (Putnam, 1920). 

Mecklin, J. M., The Ku Klux Klan (Harcourt, Brace: 1924). 


CROWDS AND MOBS 267 


Pillsbury, W. B., Psychology of Nationality and Internationalism (Apple- 
ton, 1919), Ch. VI. 

“Psicologia della folla,” Rev. ital. dt. socsol., 11 :168-95. 

Ross, E. A., Foundations of Sociology (Macmillan, 1908), Ch. V. 

Social Psychology (Macmillan, 1908), Ch. III-V. 

Sidis, Boris, “A Study of the Mob,” Atlantic Mon., LXXV: 188-97. 

Sighele, Scipio, La foule criminelle (Alcan, Paris, 1892). 

Tarde, Gabriel, L’opinion et la foule (Paris, 1901), Chs. I, II. 

Thompson, Wallace, The Mexican Mind (Little, Brown: 1922), Ch. IX. 





CHAPTER XXIII 
ASSEMBLIES AND PUBLICS 


HE assembly, another theater of intersocial stimulation, differs vitally 
from crowds and mobs. It is a group of people in which thought 
rather than feeling is the common bond. Like the crowd it varies in size 
from the casual meeting of two persons to an orderly legislative or de- 
liberative assembly or forum. Its average size is less than that of crowds. 
In fact, when an assembly becomes large it assumes crowd traits. 

An assembly is characterized by self restraint and thoughtfulness, but 
being composed of people with feelings it easily degenerates into a crowd. 
When the struggle between ideas becomes keen, feelings are almost cer- ~ 
tain to flare out, and a crowd condition develops. An assembly is so 
closely related to the crowd that it is subject to reversion any moment 
to the crowd and even to the mob. Although in an assembly persons are 
normally under control of cultural habits and parliamentary rules of 
order, they may degenerate. 

The parliamentary rules that govern assemblies have been compared 
to a straight jacket upon a monster which is in constant danger of break- 
ing loose.t Rules of order function in keeping feelings down and the 
reason in charge. “Personalities,” i.e., personal remarks, are taboo, in 
order that personal feelings may not be stirred and feeling contagion be 
stimulated. The chair must always be addressed, so that speech shall be 
impersonal. The voting must be aye and nay,—a relatively colorless 
way of expressing any pronounced or prejudiced feeling reactions that 
may be fomenting. Order must at all times be observed, for the only 
way to stop crowd disorder is at its very outset. 

Parliamentary rules at best are brittle hoops that easily snap. Let one 
man contradict another sharply and the two may rush together with 
clenched fists and angry shouts, even though the assembly be a Chamber 
of Deputies. Let the smell of smoke and the ringing cry of “Fire” enter 
a crowded church and the solemn assembly will burst the bonds of pro- 
priety, custom, and reverence, and transform itself into a fighting mob, 
trampling women and children under foot. 


2E. A. Ross, Social Psychology (Macmillan, 1908), PD. 57. 
268 


ASSEMBLIES AND PUBLICS 269 


The chief trait of assembly is discussion. The member does not simply 
bring his ideas and put them into a collection basket together with the 
ideas of other members, but in and through the discussion, new ideas 
are created. One not only learns from the others, but may be stimulated 
by the discussion to think new ideas. In the realms of thought and will 
the assembly may be highly creative.? 

To get at the difference between crowd behavior and assembly behavior 
compare the conduct of the leader of a crowd with that of an assembly 
leader. The one shouts, gesticulates wildly, shakes his fist provocatively 
in the face of his audience, becomes “oratorical,” and dogmatizes, trying 
to make his hearers feel that he is their master and that they must obey ; 
the other presents facts quietly, straightforwardly, elicits discussion, and 
calls for new ideas. The crowd leader sways his group; the assembly 
leader acts as a guide, seeing that each member has an opportunity to 
present any facts that he may possess or any creative thought that par- 
ticipation in group discussion may stimulate. The crowd leader en- 
courages choice, but choice in the direction he desires; in other words, he 
prevents all genuine choice; he is a dictator, a propagandist. The as- 
sembly leader is a participator; he leads only as a director of discussion 
and a conserver of the creative thinking that the group discussion may 
generate. 

Visit a courtroom and listen to a lawyer arguing before a jury; then 
listen to one presenting the facts before a judge—the difference between 
a crowd leader and an assembly leader is at once apparent. Attend a 
debating society and notice how each debater carefully avoids certain data 
and exploits others, how he shouts at his listeners, how he becomes sar- 
castic regarding his opponents and their arguments—for crowd effects— 
and how he deliberately deceives. Lust for victory overshadows regard 
for the truth. Now, observe the leader in a small study discussion 
group. Having no “axe to grind,” he skilfully brings each individual to 
his highest level of participation and creativeness. 


A COMMITTEE MEETING 


It is in a committee meeting that we find some of the best character- 
istics of an assembly. The group is small; there is no need tor shouting, 
for wild appeal to the feelings. One who starts off on a high key is 
made to feel ridiculous. Although there is a chairman, anyone has 


2M. P. Follett, The New State (Longmans, Green: 1920), p. 30. 


270 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


freedom to speak, and may have full opportunity to do so unless some 
member of the committee, as is sometimes the case, is over-talkative. 

The constitution of a committee is generally representative. Persons 
having had a variety of experiences bring together a wealth of ideas, 
and hence are able when interstimulation is surging high, to make sug- 
gestions and to do creative thinking that no one of them could achieve 
alone. | 

The purpose of a committee meeting is usually two-fold—to plan and 
to do. Each member works out his plans before coming to the meeting; 
these are based on careful thought and different types of experience. 
These plans are pooled, which suggests new and better plans. The com- 
mittee meeting attains its chief function when the ideas of each one 
stimulate the rest to think new ideas. At its best the committee becomes 
thus a creative group. 

In order to be most effective a committee must be ruled not by the 


spirit of conflict and compromise, but rather by the spirit of co-creating. . 


Each member must realize that opposing ideas are often complementary. 
The question at times is not, Shall this idea or that one be adopted, but 
rather, How can these “opposing” ideas be integrated into a larger whole? 


Rome and Carthage were complementary in many ways; they were not — 


“natural enemies” but natural friends, and might have worked together so 
as to have made the Mediterranean a relatively permanent center of 
human civilization. But the vision of both was too limited. France and 
Germany, likewise, are not “natural enemies,’ but natural friends, being 
complementary to one another in many things, and together they hold the 
possibilities of a marvelous, world-helping civilization. The social sciences 
are not mutual enemies although their spokesmen have frequently con- 
ducted themselves that way. Neither are the physical and social sciences 
natural antagonists, nor are science and religion. The goal of a meeting 
of the representatives of opposing beliefs should be not victory for one 
side or the other, but the working out of a large entity in which seemingly 
contradictory beliefs function harmoniously. 

Despite its excellent possibilities, a committee meeting, however, is gen- 
erally shunned as wasteful of time and energy, because of wrong attitudes 
on the part of the members and poor direction. The chairman often fails 
to see that all the facts relative to the object of the meeting are pre- 
sented in order and quickly. The discussion thus becomes merely an 
airing of opinions. The chairman may fail to keep to the main theme, 
or fail to keep the members to the theme. Not all members come to the 
meeting prepared to contribute something of value and to do creative 


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ASSEMBLIES AND PUBLICS 271 





thinking.* If these evils were forestalled the average committee meeting 
could accomplish far more in much less time than is ordinarily the case. 


LECTURES, FORUMS, SOCIALIZED RECITATIONS 


A public lecture with an open forum at the close constitutes another 
type of assembly. In this case the people have come together to learn 
of a new project or idea, to hear both sides of a question impartially pre- 
sented, to think on an important issue. The speaker aims to be scientific, 
to discriminate between facts and prejudices or biases. He talks naturally 
rather than “orates.” At the close of the address anyone may ask any 
reasonable questions for further enlightenment. The group is led to 
think primarily not this way or that, but together. 

In a socialiged recitation group the principles of an assembly assume 
an excellent form. The class is divided into small groups, which choose 
leaders. Under the direction of the leader, assignments of work are 
prepared, and presented to the class. According to the fully developed 
group recitation method each pupil is stimulated to prepare materials for 
class presentation ; he becomes a temporary leader of his group, receives 
training in directing the other group members to prepare work for 
the given class; he is given a full opportunity to appear before the class 
and lead their thinking, and as a class member, acts in the role of a 
questioner, a critic, and codperator. The teacher becomes a director of 
the whole process, while the pupil receives a liberal measure of training 
as a creative group member. 


USEFULNESS OF ASSEMBLIES 


The assembly is one of the most useful types of temporary human 
grouping. Time, expense, and energy are saved by getting people to come 
together and by stimulating them to think together rather than as sep- 
arate individuals scattered here and there. To assemble people and pre- 
sent them the facts impartially secures better results in the long run 
than to yell at them in a crowd. They gain sufficient stimulus to jar them 
out of lethargy and yet not so much that they effervesce in unstable 
decisions. As a rule it is better to arouse them to cooperative and cre- 

*Cf. Graham Wallas’ statement that he has sat through perhaps 3000 meetings 


of municipal committees and that “half of the men and women with whom I have 
sat were entirely unaware that any conscious mental effort on their part was called 


for.” The Great Society (Macmillan, 1914), p. 276. 


272 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


PRP ase Ret 0 19 AH ALA Re sed OES ORR ISTE ERENCES 
ative thinking than to fire them with a grand-stand pitch of emotion. On 
the other hand, a crowd generates an enthusiasm which an assembly can- 
not do and thus possesses an advantage over an assembly as far as certain 
types of persons and programs are concerned. 

The assembly not only arouses people from drowsiness and mental 
lethargy, but generates in them new attitudes. An assembly, like a crowd, 
often shakes people loose from egoistic viewpoints and secures their 
thoughtful, permanent committal to group aims, to steady financial sup- 
port of group movements, and to regular participation in group activities. 
When in an assembly, the socially reflected images of an individual affect 
him greatly. Just because he is in the presence of a thoughtful, and 
more or less critical group, he is keenly sensitive regarding the impres- 
sions that he makes. He develops a broader social attitude than he 
would if he remained away from assembly influence. 

The leader of an assembly is the key man. Through the quietly spoken 
word, clothed in the richness of a socialized personality, the leader can . 
exert a constructive influence directly, but an even greater influence in- 
directly, that is, by getting all to participate under group motivation and 
to contribute their most original thinking. 

An assembly can frequently be addressed to better advantage than 
can individuals. The leader does not experience the embarrassment 
which he feels when conversing upon a delicate phase of a given indi- 
vidual’s conduct. He can make a suggestion to an assembly which would 
be taken as an insult if addressed personally to certain offenders who may 
be in the assembly. There is just enough anonymity to enable indi- 
viduals who need reprimand to say to themselves, ‘““He means some one 
else,” and enough force in the speaker’s remarks to penetrate their think- 
ing deeply, stimulating them “to right about face” without having their 
pride pricked. 

Despite its worthy traits, a big assembly is rarely satisfactory; even a 
group, such as a committee of thirty is too large for effective individual 
participation, because the chief points for discussion become lost in 
the idiosyncrasies of thirty different personalities. Discussion is neces- 
sary, but too much talk hinders progress. A large committee arouses the 
pride of those who are chosen and of all who thus are represented, but 
easily degenerates into a crowd, stimulates the flow of irrational opinion 
and verbiage, and weakens the group responsibility of the individual 
members. 

Assemblies are of two classes, those that organize thought and those | 


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ASSEMBLIES AND PUBLICS _ 273 


that organize will.* The first spends much time in deliberation. A col- 
lege class, a discussion group around the dinner table, persons in friendly 
argumentation anywhere—these are assemblies that center on thought. A 
board of directors’ meeting, a foremen’s conference, a staff officers’ 
meeting—these concentrate on will. Many assemblies have both func- 
tions with one or the other being primary. Each call for specialized 
leadership.® 

Assemblies, at their best, must be small. Large numbers are only 
quasi-assemblies. They continually verge on crowd contagion and propa- 
gandist movements. The true assembly is that which provides free inter- 
social stimulation and whose deliberations produce new creative thinking 
and doting. 


PUBLICS 


The public is a quasi-temporary group. It lacks the structure and 
prescribed limits of a permanent group, and the face-to-face or bodily 
presence characteristics of the assembly or crowd. Although without 
the physical presence of its members, it possesses a substantial degree 
of permanence and is a powerful factor in a democracy. It closely 
resembles the crowd in the ease with which the feelings of its 
members are aroused, but possesses common sense characteristics re- 
sembling those of the assembly. It also has group traits peculiar to 
itself.® 

The rise of the public came about as a result of the modern develop- 
ment in means of communication, such as the invention of the printing 
press, the railroad, the telegraph, the telephone, and the radio.’ Conse- 
quently, individuals can feel, think, and even act alike, without coming 
together either as crowds or assemblies. The public as a social group 
is still little understood and is not scientifically controlled. 

The printing press has been given primary credit by Sighele for creating 
the public and substituting it for the crowd.* The railroad shortens 
distances and enables newspapers to reach the outskirts of cities and 


“Cf. E. A. Ross, Principles of Sociology (Century, 1920), Chs. XXIII, XXIV; 
also Graham Wallas, The Great Society, Chs. XI, XII. 

5 Cf. the Chapter on “Mental Leadership.” 

®Cf., Snedden’s designation of face-to-face group as an “associate group,” colored 
by “a wealth of feeling accompaniments,’ and of publics as “federate groups” in 
which only a small fraction of social relationships are personal.” David Snedden, 
“Communities Associate and Federate,” Amer. Jour. of Sociology, XXVIII: 681-693. 

™See the Chapter on “Communication.” 

*La foule criminelle (Paris, 1892), p. 225. 


274 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


even remote rural localities in a comparatively short time. Further, the 
telegraph, telephone, and radio have almost eliminated distance, permit- 
ting any news to travel thousands of miles in a few minutes. The radio 
is developing publics of its own. Hence, the railroad, telegraph, tele- 
phone, the radio cooperate with and supplement the printing press in the 
development of publics.® 

Each reading public tends to develop its own type of journalism and 
to produce newspapers which have its own good and bad qualities and 
which are its own creatures.° Large numbers scattered over a wide ter- 
ritory regularly read the news organs of the publics to which they belong, 
feel simultaneously the same way in regard to a wanton attack upon any- 
thing which is a part of a given public, and express their feelings and 
opinions simultaneously, being aware that at the same time the other mem- 
bers of that public are experiencing the same feelings and giving expres- 
sion to the same opinions. 


A staunch member of the Republican party in the United States sub-~ 


scribes only to Republican newspapets. If handed a radical socialist 
journal he would feel insulted. The orthodox socialist subscribes faith- 
fully to his party press, but throws aside Republican newspapers without 


a glance. The churchman peruses regularly the religious journals of his | 


belief, but spurns free-thinking publications, while in the same neighbor- 
hood the freethinker scoffs at religious papers. Thus each public 
creates its own instruments of communication. What would happen if 
for one year all Republicans were to read open-mindedly only socialist 
newspapers and all socialists were to give faithful attention to the Re- 
publican press? The reaction of the public upon its press is much greater 
than is ordinarily supposed. Probably the public exercises as great a con- 
trol over the newspapers as they do over it. In reversions to past and 
lower standards the press of the “yellow” and melodramatic type in- 
directly control its publics. 

Within its public the newspaper is tempted to cater to the lower nature 
of its members. The commercialized newspaper finds that it pays to 
sensationalize, to appeal to passions and prejudices, and to play up the 
morbid. The daily press is prone to omit the publication of vital social 
facts, of data derogatory to powerful social institutions, such as private 
property, the church, or large advertisers; it tends to elaborate the minor 
details of burglaries, divorce scandals, prize fights. It is often controlled 


°Ta foule criminelle (Paris, 1892), pp 225, 226. Also see Gabriel Tarde, L’opinion 
et la foule (Paris, 1901), Ch. iF 
* Ibid., p. 241. 


ASSEMBLIES AND PUBLICS 275 


by the advertisers of non-essentials. It directly influences its public in 
spending rather than in saving and thrift."? 

One public is often played against another by the newspaper, and 
thus, crowd spirit is engendered. The average reader easily believes 
the best about his own group and the worst about other groups. What 
labor newspaper relates the good deeds of employers, and what capitalist 
publications extol the long-suffering and heart-yearning of the wage- 
earning man and his family? Publics thus become biased against one 
another. They develop a sense of injustice where a cooperative spirit is 
needed and would be engendered by a scientific understanding of the 
facts. 

The public is deficient in certain virtues of the assembly and is not 
subject to all the weaknesses of the crowd. To the extent that newspapers 
suppress the truth or play upon the feelings, or by “scare” headlines 
create false sentiments, the public is the victim of the foibles of crowd 
contagion. To the degree, however, in which the members of a public 
can sit quietly in the home or office and think carefully, they possess 
advantages akin to those of the assembly. 


STEADYING EFFECT OF PUBLICS 


A person is a member of several publics at the same time, but only 
of one crowd or assembly at a time. The stimuli from one public may 
cancel those from another. He may belong simultaneously to a Coolidge 
public, a Billy Sunday public, a Babe Ruth public, and a John McCormack 
public. His interests as a member of one public may run counter to his 
interests as a member of another; hence, he will be compelled to pair 
off impulses and to act more rationally than if a member at the time of a 
single face-to-face group. In this way publics may have a singularly 
steadying effect. 


AN ERA OF PUBLICS 


The twentieth century is becoming “an era of publics,” and thus, the 
influence of countless crowds is partially offset. In a small way the pub- 
lic is supplanting the crowd. The increase of both publics and crowds, 
however, is complicating in its effects on currents of opinion. The 
maze of publics that one may belong to may lead, not to rational results 
but to befuddled thinking by the average man, unless he be mentally 


=Cf. “War Thrift,” by T. N. ee in Preliminary Economic Studies of the 
Wor (Oxford Univ. Press, 1919), Ch. 


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270 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


well trained. Educational methods are needed whereby the rank and file 
of the people will be stimulated to think clearly in terms of several large 
publics at one and the same time. 


CRISES AND PUBLICS 


Crises produce publics. A local catastrophe arouses a virile commu- 
nity consciousness. All the citizens feel and think together, and begin to 
work together on rehabilitation plans. In times of national calamities, or 
especially of impending danger from without the nation, an entire country 
becomes a public. Smaller publics subordinate their claims to the national 
public. Instead of several publics or “blocs” working more or less against 
one another there arises one vast public and one widespread public 
opinion. 

The danger of an attack upon the earth from an ether-plane fleet from 
Mars would do more than anything else to fuse the peoples of the earth. 
into a world public. France and Germany would forget their feud; white 
and yellow and black races would lay aside their reciprocal dislikes; re- 
ligious controversies would cease. Without an impending world calamity 
it will be some time before a world public with definite purposes and 
organizations will develop. 


UNSCIENTIFIC NATURE OF PUBLICS 


Although publics are coming to the fore as powerful human group- 
ings, they are still in a pre-scientific stage. They are monsters of gigantic 
force but with little brain. These hippopotami among groups require scien- 
tific examination. Since the average mental level of publics in the United 
States is perhaps that of the sixth or seventh grade, that is, of the twelve 
to fourteen year old child, they have little poise and self-control. To 
imagine a million or fifty million children twelve years of age functioning 
together in groups will explain the weaknesses of publics. An undeveloped 
intelligence is the misfortune of publics, as well as of crowds, and hence, 
in our country, of democracy, for democracy is composed of publics. With 
a rise in the average intelligence, publics will become more efficient. | 

Education in the traditional sense will not suffice. Education that stim- 
ulates socialized attitudes and that builds socialized habits is a mini- 
mum requirement. Publics need to be made self-critical, and people as 
members of publics need to assume a greatly increased responsibility for 
the nature of the opinion held and promulgated by publics, \ 


a eee 


8. 


ASSEMBLIES AND PUBLICS 277 





PRINCIPLES 


. An assembly is a temporary form of grouping in which ideas rather 


than feelings control. 


. A committee meeting, a discussion group, and an open forum are 


representative assemblies. 


. Parliamentary rules of order are essential in order to prevent a big 


assembly from degenerating into a crowd. 


. Assembly leaders may be directors of discussion rather than crowd 


or yell leaders. 


. Assemblies are useful forms of temporary grouping, for they save 


time, expense, and energy, and foster creative thinking. 


. The public is a quasi-temporary group made possible by the invention 


of the printing press, railroad, telegraph, telephone, and radio, 
whereby large numbers of people may feel and think alike, and be 
aware of a community of feeling and thinking, without coming 
together in each other’s presence. 


. Publics possess a steadying effect, for a person may belong to several 


at the same time and thus be forced to compare and choose between 
stimuli. 

Crises generate publics, arousing the social consciousness of many 
otherwise self-centered or socially thoughtless people. 


9g. The development of an era of publics at a time when the average 


SO WMYANRRYW DH 


= 
Lol 


intelligence is not above that of the twelve or fourteen year old 
child creates special social problems. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. What is the most important characteristic of an assembly? 
. Is a jury an assembly or a crowd? 
. Is a church congregation an assembly? 


Why are parliamentary rules brittle and easily snapped? 
Why may an assembly promote creative thinking? 
What are the merits of open forum meetings? 

In what way is an assembly inferior to a crowd? 


. What are the leading temptations of a leader of an assembly? 
. Why must assemblies be small in size? 

. What is a public? 

. Name three publics to which you now belong. 


278 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


ped Mumm esRCON Ce 17 MMU ae 00 TR a Re 
12. What is the relation of a public to means of communication? 
13. How are publics and newspapers related? 


PROBLEMS 


1. Why is it harder to address 200 persons in a hall that seats 1,000 than 
in one which seats 150? | 

What was the origin of parliamentary rules? 

_ As a rule have you enjoyed committee meetings? Why? 

Why do many students dislike the socialized recitation method ? 

_ Is a large lecture class an assembly or a crowd? 

. If you have observel a public originate, what have been the main 
generating factors? 

_ How does a radio public differ from other publics? 

_ What are the difficulties hindering the development of a world 
public? 

9. What would you say is the chief strength and the chief weakness of 

a public? 


An pW N 


CON 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Follett, M. P., The New State (Longmans, Green: 1918), Chs. I, VI. 
Gardner, Si “Assemblies,” Amer. Jour. of Sociology XIX; 531-55; 
and in Psychology and Preaching (Macmillan, 1918), Chs. XT, LL 
Ginsberg, Morris, The Psychology of Society (Dutton, 1921), Ch. Da 
Hamilton, C., “Psychology of Theater Audiences,” Forum, XXXIX: 
234-48. 
Lippmann, Walter, Public Opinion (Harcourt, Brace: 1922), Part IIT. 
McDougall, William, The Group Mind (Putnam, 1920), Chs. VII, VIII. 
Ross, E. A., Social Psychology (Macmillan, 1908), pp. 63-65; 346-348. 


CHAPTER XXIV 
OCCUPATIONALIGRGULS 


N occupation is a standardized, and persistent type of activity. It is 

a complex set of ways of doing according to which persons make a 
living and by which some find their largest opportunities for social use- 
fulness and personal development. An occupational group is a public 
that has grown up around ways of earning a living. When an occupa- 
tional consciousness reaches a certain level, a local organization, for 
example, a trades union, is formed. Then national or international or- 
ganizations may follow, chiefly for purposes of group security and main- 
tenance of standards. 

The members of a given occupation develop a special vocabulary, many 
biases, and specific attitudes toward other occupational groups. Most 
people devote their best hours to their occupations and hence the social 
psychology of occupations deals with the heart of life. Each occupation 
makes its own demand on attention and thought, and develops its own 
mental problems. 


INFLUENCE OF DOING ON THINKING 


Doing a thing or a set of things according to certain patterns every 
day, in season and out, tends to create a psychical pattern for each 
person. The occupation of driving ox-teams will produce a slow-moving 
mental pattern, while driving a taxicab in a large city will lead to a quick- 
moving mental pattern. Acting as a motorman with the sign before 
one of “Don’t speak to the motorman” gives one a day’s work in a mental 
vacuum, while teaching classes of wide-awake, inquiring young people 
sharpens one’s wits and develops an intellectually alert mental complex. 
Correcting children’s mistakes in arithmetic, spelling, and reading for 
several hours daily, over a period of years produces a mistake-hunting 
mental pattern. A hunting life establishes different psychoses than does 
agriculture. 

Objects won in occupational activities become values, social values. 
These values are paralleled by correlative attitudes; and hence, each 
occupation is characterized by social values and attitudes peculiar to 

279 


280 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


A eran RAVAN L TIA 0 kh Aen RR Pa Ds iano noe mn Hee OS TE 


itself. Business activity yields money, which becomes a chief value for 
business men. Missionary activity bears fruit in “converts” who become 
the leading values to missionaries. Political life yields votes, one of 
the chief values to “politicians.” | 

It would seem that two persons starting with about the same predis- 
positions, the same urges to activity, the same human nature, and mental 
potentialities, may choose different occupations; for example, one, a 
money-making occupation, and the other, a service occupation such as 
missionary work, and at the end of twenty years have become “successful” 
but have drifted so far apart in mental interests as to have almost nothing 
in common. 

It appears that an ordinary person’s mental equipment is such as to 
fit him to succeed in any one of a number of occupations. “Rarely does 
it happen that talent is suited to one occupation only.” Occupational 
activity seems, however, to take the inherited stock of impulses and 


aptitudes and be instrumental in organizing them in complexes, so that . 


a given person’s thinking at the age of fifty is quite different than it would 
have been had he followed some other occupation at which he might have 
succeeded equally well. 

Choice of an occupation therefore is momentous. Most individuals 
drift into their occupations. Much of the work that has been done in 
vocational guidance and education has neglected the social psychology 
of occupations. There is little valuable data on hand, and yet these 
factors are perhaps the most important of all, for occupation exercises 
such powerful influence over human thinking. A person's attitudes of 
life at fifty are forecasted in his choice of a vocation at twenty or fifteen. 
The responsibility of vocational guidance is far-reaching. 

Whiting Williams, after observing men at work in many parts of the 
world, makes the following general conclusion: “We tend to live our 
way into our thinking, more than we think our way into our living.” * 
From the standpoint of a student for many years of educational processes 
R. L. Finney concludes: ‘Our interests predetermine our thinking, sel- 
dom does our thinking select our interests.” ? A social worker in studying 
prison wardens points out that the effect of being placed in charge of 
other beings, who are deprived of their liberty and civil rights, is demor- 
alizing and too great a strain.? Mumford indicates that a socialist given 
to thinking about the human suffering which has accompanied the growth 


* Horny Hands and Hampered Elbows (Scribners, 1922), p. ix. 
Causes and Cures for Social Unrest (Macmillan, 1922), pp. 7-8. 
Homer Folks, National Conference of Social Work (1923), p. 4. 


iii 


Se | 


OCCUPATIONAL GROUPS 281 


of capitalism thereby becomes blinded to the worthy phases of organiza- 
tion, distribution, and control within a capitalistic industry. A lawyer 
likewise is occupationally influenced: 


The mood of partisanship has been that of a lawyer who is getting up an 
argument and is looking for such facts as will bolster up his case. That mood 
is inimical to free and intelligent thought; its object is rhetorical triumph.’ 


A community organized expert in dealing with people of all occupa- 
tions observes: “So all men are prisoners to their special work and 
point of view.” ® 

In a comparative statement Gault brings out the idea: 


The professional disposition or complex of the physician renders him sug- 
gestible in the face of situations that leave the carpenter untouched. He 
responds with enthusiasm to a movement for paving the streets because it 
“suggests” to him what never occurred to the proposers—the improvement 
of sanitary conditions." 


OCCUPATIONAL EGOCENTRISM 


A person who has enjoyed his work in a given occupation and has 
succeeded in it, is apt to feel that “his”? occupation or profession is the 
most important of all. All of life becomes organized habitually around 
one’s occupational activities. An anonymous writer, for example, illus- 
trates the point when he says: “The miller thinks that the wheat grows 
only in order to keep his mill going.’ A social psychological interpreta- 
tion of the situation is given by Williams when he refers to a business 
man: 


In the course of his work his business became precious to him because it 
was that for which he had given his life, just as children are precious to the 
mother as that for which she has given her life, and the book to the author 
as that for which he has given his life. Life is precious and whatever one 
gives it for becomes precious.’ 


The egocentrism of occupation affects the wage-earner and the capitalist 
similarly. The effect of specialization, of a relatively narrow horizon in 
both cases, is clearly evident. The tendency of both capital and labor to 
feel themselves superior to each other is eclipsed by the belief of both 
that they are superior to society itself. George Eastman, the kodak man- 

“The Story of Utopias (Boni and Liveright, 1923), p. 256. 

*Ibid., p. 255. 

*Henry E. Jackson, Robinson Crusoe, Social Engineer (Dutton, 1922), p. 197. 


"Social Psychology (Holt, 1923), p. 140. 
®The Foundations of Social Science (Knopf, 1920), pp. 57-58. 


282 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


ufacturer, punctures the fallacy when he says: “Man could not go into 
the woods and build up a big business. It is the community who make 
it possible.” ® Hobhouse puts it this way: 

The poor man maintains “my” right to work and wages as though the 
community whose system of exchanges makes work profitable and gives money 
wages their value had nothing to say to the claim. The inheritor of wealth 
talks of “my” property, and resents interference with it by society, forgetting 


that without the organized force of the community and the rule of law, he 
could neither inherit nor be secure from moment to moment in his possession.” 


In this connection the attitudes of college professors are notorious. 
Each one is apt to believe that the subjects he teaches are more important 
than other subjects. If any courses of study are to be “required,” each 
professor feels that his own should be included. A frank and conscien- 
tious student who, in good faith, tells his teacher that he “didn’t get 
anything out of that course’ had better not enroll with that teacher 
again soon. 

The successful farmer feels the superiority of his occupation over 
other lines of activity, and does not conceal his attitude. If he be of 
the traditional type he boasts of his “independence,” and how he can 


do as he pleases on his own land. He openly expresses pity for the 


“poor fish” who coop themselves up in large cities, wearing white collars 
and developing soft hands. 

The hereditary leisure classes even proclaim the superiority of an idle 
existence. They make an occupation out of doing nothing. They exalt 
afternoon teas and bridge parties into a dignified profession, scorning to 
soil their hands by manual labor. As their mental faculties atrophy they 
become incapable of perceiving that their do-nothing existence, instead of 
being the highest of all, may be the most vapid, silly, and anti-social of all. 

Occupational uniformities of thinking become conventional and more 
or less fixed. Occupational literature furthers the traditions. Trade 
journals cater to the occupational prejudices of its constituents. Each 
boosts the calling it represents, until its readers become saturated with 
occupational pride, which, in time may become occupational blindness. 
A person usually takes one or several occupational journals which he 
reads regularly, but is not interested in, and does not read regularly 
the journals of other lines of activity. 


Occupational uniformities become fixed in group heritage. Children | 


are trained in these traditional lines of thinking from early infancy. 


°Hearst’s International, XLIV: 36. 
2 Elements of Social Justice (Holt, 1922), p. 26. 


| 
’ 


OCCUPATIONAL GROUPS 283 


Table talk and family conversation has its occupational center. He who 
shifts to a calling different from the parental one soon finds himself 
swallowed up in a matrix of old and established occupational thinking. 
Each craft, trade, or profession tends to develop its own cultural heri- 
tages, slogans, beliefs, or even superstitions. These are sooner or later 
caught up by the individual and with modifications become a part of 
his thought life. 

Each functional group has its own type of intersocial stimulation. 
People who are working at the same tasks come together to talk “shop.” 
“Shop talk” is a strong evidence of occupational influence on thinking, 
and of the large place which occupational thinking holds in the lives of 
the workers in any field of activity. By daily meeting people of the same 
type as one’s self, who are doing about the same thing in a similar way, 
one’s tendency to develop an occupational complex is magnified. 

Each occupational group has its own institutions and organizations 
through which its thinking becomes crystallized in established ways and 
stimulated along new lines. These organizations may become highly de- 
veloped, as in the case of the American Medical Association and the 
American Bar Association, which set up standards of professional ethics, 
and rule the professional conduct of the membership. 


OCCUPATIONAL CONTROLS 


An occupation not only affects the mental patterns of individuals; not 
only develops heritages of belief and feeling, but it also creates class 
cleavages and other social divisions. Its values often come to be rated 
so high that occupational groups seek social and political power. 
Business organizations attempt to control legislation; labor unions enter | 
politics; and even professional groups lobby for laws they desire. 
Professional groups usually are stimulated to seek legislative aid as a 
protection. They feel the encroachment of other organizations in the 
same field. Note, for example, in the United States, the struggles between 
the various medical groups for protection or freedom through political 
means. In the United States labor unions were at first pronounced 
conspiracies against the government, and it was only after a long fight 
that they achieved political status. Both business and labor organizations, 
after becoming highly organized, have sought to dominate the social order. 
In recent years we have educational bodies actively engaged in trying 
to impose their occupational values and even professional techniques 
upon society. 


284 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


eth A eS 


This development of occupational control has been given specialized 
emphasis in recent years in various economic theories and practices, such 
as bolshevism,, guild socialism, and by the I. W. W. A tangible form 
is found in the general concept of occupational representation versus geo- 
graphic representation. This idea of occupational control is centuries 
old, finding expression in the guilds in England, which six or seven 
centuries ago, secured governmental representation. ) 


In many continental towns, the craft guilds, as such, elected the members 
of the town council. Thus in Florence, beginning in 1293, the twenty-one 
principal federations of craft guilds chose the Priors and all other important 
magistrates. In Strasbourg the City Council was composed of the delegates 
from the twenty-five principal guild groups.” 


National government bodies likewise have been based on occupational 
representation. The English Parliament originated as “an assembly of 
the ‘estates’ of the landed nobility, the clergy, the free-holders, and the 
merchants and manufacturers of the towns,’ while the legislature of — 
Sweden down to 1866 “consisted of four houses, representing the clergy, — 
the nobility, the burghers, and the peasants, respectively, with each house — 
meeting and deliberating separately.” ” 

In primitive society territorial and occupational representation are 
closely related, but as industrial specialization developed, particularly after — 
the Industrial Revolution, a large number of occupations came to per- | 
meate a specific territorial area, and occupational representation ideas — 
were eclipsed. The method has recently come to the fore with the 
emphasis given it by the communists of Russia. The workmen’s councils — 
or soviets have stressed the occupational procedure as a means of creating ; 
a proletarian government. By it the communist perceives a means of 1 
ruling nations and the world, for the skilled and unskilled occupations ’ 
outnumber all others. He favors it as a means of dethroning the “minor-— 
ity” now in control, the minority who own the wealth and who are sup- 
ported by the intellectual élite and the upper half of the middle class 
who aspire to a wealth status. 

Outside of communist ranks, moreover, there has developed a large 
following of the occupational control idea, especially among those who 
have become disgusted with the evils of current political methods, and with 
its “bosses” and “machine control.” It is argued that men who live 
near one another, but having different occupational attitudes, cancel one 


=P. H. Douglas, “Occupational Versus Proportional Representation,” Amer. J our. 
of Sociology, XXIX: 2. 
* Ibid., p. 131. 


PE Me PN Ne RT | 





OCCUPATIONAL GROUPS 28s 





another’s influence, so that political power comes into the hands of 
manipulators. It is also argued that occupational representation, on 
the other hand, would give persons who work together and have common 
attitudes, representation, as such. There is no guarantee that occupa- 
tional representatives would be less selfish and less given to political log- 
rolling and chicanery than geographic representatives. Occupational 
groups could doubtless be graded regarding their social attitudes with the 
result that the occupations with the higher social values would probably be 
in the minority and hence overwhelmed. 

Occupations are subject to various classifications. A profession is a 
type of occupation in which activity is specialized and requires special 
training, and in which service is put ahead of wages. As soon as it 
acquires standing, mountebanks pose as members and try to fool the 
public. Then, the field is deliberately fenced in, and standards or exam- 
inations are required for entrance. In this way superior persons are pro- 
tected and other equally superior persons are attracted.1* The problem of 
excluding the unfit, the quacks, and the charlatans is difficult and ever- 
present. A profession is different from a business, in that the profit 
motive is subordinated; it requires technical knowledge that can be 
developed only by extended study by persons who have an aptitude 
therefor."* 

The evidence, however, does not permit the adoption of an occupational 
determinism theory, for work is only one factor in the development of 
a person’s social attitudes. It clearly is not wholly dominant. It may 
become a subordinate factor if a person attempts to see himself in his 
occupational attitudes as persons in other occupations see him; if he 
analyzes the biases which his occupation generates, and establishes habits 
of personal control over these occupational biases. 


PRINCIPLES 


1. An occupation is a standardized and habitual type of activity. 

. Thinking tends to become organized about activities. 

3. Habitual activities seem to influence thinking more than thinking 
affects activities. 

4. Occupational activity develops an occupational egocentrism. 

5. Occupational uniformities of thinking easily become customary and 
conventionalized. 


i) 


AE A. Ross, Principles of Sociology (Century, 1920), p. 474. 
J. M. Williams, Principles of Social Psychology (Knopf, 1922), p. 225. 


286 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


. Occupational uniformities of thinking develop into mental patterns. 

. Occupational thinking becomes formulated in organizations, institu- 
tions, and standards of ethics. 

. Occupational patterns lead to class cleavages and conflicts. 

g. Government by occupational representation would give the lower 

grade trades dominance over the higher grade professions. 


00 NI OF 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


1. What is an occupation ? 

2. What is occupational egocentrism ? 

3. Explain: “work makes the worker.” 

4. Illustrate: occupational uniformities of thinking. 

5. Illustrate: “shop talk.” 

6. Explain the term, occupational ethics. 

7. Why may a person ordinarily succeed equally well in more than one 
occupation ? 

8. Illustrate occupational representation in government. 

9. Why is occupational representation favored? 

10. What are the weaknesses of occupational representation ? 


PROBLEMS 


1. What are the differences between a trade and a profession ? 

2. Why do we tend to live our way into our thinking more than we 
think our way into our living? 

3. Why do people who live a life of do-nothing luxury and consumption 
pride themselves upon being superior to hard-working folks? 

. Distinguish between the ‘“‘shop talk” of any two occupations. 

. Distinguish between the professional ethics of any two professions. 

_ What factors determine a person’s choice of occupation? 

_ What would be superior to either geographic or occupational rep- 
resentation in government? 


NS OU 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Douglas, Paul H., Occupational versus Proportional Representation, 
Amer. Jour. of Sociology, XX1X: 129-157. 


OCCUPATIONAL GROUPS 287 


Follett, M. P., The New State (Longmans, Green: 1918), Ch. XXXIII. 
Veblen, Thorstein, The Theory of the Leisure Class (Macmillan, 1912), 


tials 
Williams, J. M., Foundations of Social Science (Knopf, 1920), Chs. 
BIPeLV. 


‘CHAPTER XXV 
GROUP OPINION 


| nestor to intersocial stimulation, the desires and attitudes of people 
find expression through bundles of opinion, that is, group opinion, 
or public opinion. Group opinion, is specific, while public opinion refers 
either to the indefinite general opinion of a large group, such as a national 
group, or to the opinion of a “public,” as the term was used in the pre- 
ceding chapter. The latter usage is more exact, and hence better. 

An opinion is what a person thinks about or his judgment of anything. 
It is more superficial than an attitude; a person’s opinion is not always 
his real attitude because it may be expressed for effect or to secure rec- 
ognition. Although cognitive it may be superficially so, being easily influ- 
enced by the desires or feeling elements. 

Opinion arises out of personal experiences, but experience is one of 
the worst teachers possible when it leads a person to think that “he knows — 
it all,” when he concludes that his experiences are typical. Experience is 
a poor teacher when it results in the particularistic fallacy, namely, that — 
a part is a fair sample of the whole. A single striking experience is all- 
powerful in the formation of one’s opinion. Our opinions are generally 
made up from the knowledge of a few creditable or damaging facts about 
a person or movement. We condemn a whole race if we know two 
or three members who are rascals. In this day of highly complicated 
societary life it is folly to rely entirely on one’s own experiences; yet 
many are doing nearly that. 

Opinions are commonly handed down from a past that arrived at them 
unscientifically. They are assumed to apply to the present on the grounds — 
that “human nature never changes.” In the process of being transmitted 
they are mulled over and appear in the form of traditions or social mem-~ 
ory “Tradition is the integration of opinion of many generations.” 
If current opinion is undependable, then past opinion is still more SO, 
and yet it is the integration of the two which constitutes present public 
values. 

Points of view determine opinion. A person’s point of view controls” 
what new ideas he will debar or admit to his thinking.? Points of view 


iF. H. Giddings, Principles of Sociology (Macmillan, 1806). 
E. C. Hayes, Publications of American Sociological Society, XVI: 2. 
288 


a 


DT IS ig ig eg 


GROUP OPINION 289 


are adventitiously built up out of tradition and past experiences, and 
hence are not necessarily scientific. 

Public opinion may refer to the opinion of “everybody” in the group, 
or more likely it may be the views of the majority. It is not based on 
“the mere number on each side of a question.” * On one side there may 
be authorities and educators which give a minority greater force than 
a majority. Again, a minority may include those who hold to their views 
“more tenaciously than others” and thus influence lukewarm numbers. 
Public opinion represents not simply a majority, but “an effectwe 
majority.” 

Public opinion does not require unanimity; it must have, however, the 
good will of the minority. The latter must feel “bound by connection, 
not by fear’ to accept the rulership of the majority. They must have 
a sense of obligation and participate ungrudgingly. In order that a 
minority may maintain this attitude, it must have the right of persuasion 
open to it, or else it cannot respect the majority. 


UNRELIABILITY OF OPINION 


An important reason for the unreliability of group opinion is the 
fact that people think in images. These may be real or genuine. Out of 
false interpretations and also from correct analyses of faulty traditions 
people construct defective pictures.© We get to thinking in stereotyped 
images and bend experiences to fit these stereotypes rather than construct 
new images to fit experiences. The stereotypes soon come to master us, 
or rather we fit ourselves into these molds which come to fit “as snugly 
as an old shoe.” 


“No wonder, then, that any disturbance of the stereotypes seems like an 
attack upon the foundations of the universe. It is an attack upon the founda- 
tions of our universe, and, where big things are at stake, we do not readily 
admit that there is any distinction between our universe and the universe. A 
world which turns out to be one in which those we honor are unworthy, and 
those we despise are noble, is nerve- -wracking. There is anarchy if our order 
of precedence is not the only possible one.” ° 


Stereotyped group thinking colors the thinking of the membership. 
Consequently, the same bit of truth may be interpreted in as many ways 
as there are standardized groups. Says Rabbi E. R. Trattner: 

7A. L. Lowell, Public Opinion and Popular Government (Longmans, Green: 
1921), pp. 13, 25. 


bid., pp. 15, 34. 
* Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion (Harcourt, Brace: 1922), p. 3. 


*Ibid., pp. 95, 96. 





290 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


Uh ed 


“To the Socialist, Jesus is understood as a forerunner of Karl Marx; to the 
single-taxer He is the direct predecessor of Henry George; to the spiritualist 
He is the first psychic; to the Christian Scientist He receives His correct 
historical setting in the metaphysical teachings of Mrs. Eddy. Thus every 
‘ism,’ every sect, denominaiion, or party manufactures the kind of Jesus it 
wants.” 


Another germane fact is that ordinary talk is perhaps the most common 
basis of opinion. An attempt by one person to discriminate is offset by 
the common practice to gossip. In nearly all groups there is gullible 
acceptance of anything new, startling, spectacular, pathological—about 
anybody. Gossip whirls which promote unscientific public opinion are 
caught up by the daily press and headlined to the world. On the other 
hand, scientificially established facts are hard to get, and, often being 
colorless and impersonal, are slow to spread. 


GROUP EGOISM 


An underlying group egoism makes opinion unreliable and biased. To 
blindness and narrowness of vision every group considers itself superior 
and views other groups with more or less disdain. Each racial group 
considers itself “the chosen people ;” each religious group views all non- 
members as heretics, pagans, or lost souls. Each occupation develops its 
own group-egoism and biases.® 


INTEGRATION OF OPINION 


Group opinion is not just the algebraic sum of the opinions of persons}; 
it is more, namely, the result of the creativeness that comes from inter- 
social stimulation. The process is that already referred to in a preceding 
chapter in connection with the creativeness of a discussion group. It 
is allied to but superior to the contagion generated in a crowd. Group 
opinion is more than; as Bryce says, “an aggregate of the views men hold 
regarding matters that affect or interest the community.” ® Ellwood puts 
the idea this way: “Effective public opinion is always the codperative 
product of the interaction of many individual minds.” *° 

To the extent that primary personal opinions are fallacious, derived 


"Los Angeles Times, Dec. 24, 1923, Part II, p. 3. 
*An important phase of this theme has already been treated in the preceding 

chapter under the heading, “Occupational Egocentrism.” 
* Modern Democracies (Macmillan, 1921), p. 153. 


” The Reconstruction of Religion (Macmillan, 1922), p. 300. 


GROUP OPINION 291 


public opinion is also fallacious. The creativeness that groups including 
publics automatically produce may be emotional, as well as cognitive, 
and fictitious as well as authentic. The rise of group opinion without 
the development of adequate means of controlling its quality constitutes 
a serious social problem. The multiplication of newspapers, of motion 
picture films, and other means of creating opinion as well as stimulating 
desires, together with the current emphasis on commercialization, that 
is, of “selling” anything to the public that the public can be aroused to 
want, have placed people at the mercy of a dangerous monster. 

Public opinion rules most persons with a powerful hand. As an agent 
of social control, it will be discussed in a later chapter,1? but it may be 
asserted here that the force of public opinion is so powerful that only 
the strongest minded person can stand out against it. Group opinion 
is a gigantic mirror in which, whether they will or no, individuals see 
their own behavior reflected. 

Much has been written about the tyranny of the group, and particularly 
of “the tyranny of the majority.”** It has naively been thought that 
“majority rule” is necessarily democratic, but the opinion of the majority 
may be as autocratic as the opinion of a czar or king. The quality of 
group opinion depends on the nature of the persons who create it. If 
they are egoistic and self-willed then the opinion they generate will be 
tyrannically selfish. Majority opinion may be as autocratic as a Kaiser; 
the only safeguard is in the attitudes of the people. This tyranny is to 
be distinguished from “the fatalism of the multitude,” 1. e., the feeling 
that the multitude will prevail anyhow and that it is hopeless for one 
to try to change the opinion of immense numbers. 

Group opinion often takes the form of group egoism. In recent years 
the molding of public opinion by private interests has become an or- 
ganized business. Through advertising, and indirectly through the sup- 
pression of certain news, and worst of all, through the distortion of 
news, that is, the exploiting of certain phases of a situation and the 
disregard of other and more important phases, it is easy to hoodwink 
the public. There is scarcely an issue of a metropolitan newspaper that 
does not afford illustrations of the attempt to influence public opinion 
on behalf of particular interests under the guise of concern for the 
whole. 

For years prior to 1914 the leading European governments, particularly 
the German government, carried on an extensive program of controlling 


* Chapter XXX. 


) “James Bryce (Macmillan, 1888), American Commonwealth, Vol. II, Ch. LXXVI. 
| 





292 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


eM NRT RUD NTN Cede covertncnnuaent cre SDD 2mm nme mpg T 


opinion. In Germany the method had become thoroughly organized, to 
the extent of controlling the public schools and the teachers and hence 
the little children. 

The largest high-pressure’ campaign to influence a whole nation group 
within the shortest possible time was conducted in the United States in 
1917 and 1918. After the people had reélected Woodrow Wilson presi- 
dent in November, 1916, for having “kept us out of war,’ it was necessary 
for the Administration the next April, following the declaration of war, 
to inaugurate a nation-wide program to reverse the opinion of a peace- 
loving public. Machinery was set up whereby 75,000 four-minute men 
delivered more than 750,000 speeches to an aggregate of over 300,000,000 
individuals.12 Every two weeks literature was sent to 600,000 teachers, 
and 200,000 lantern slides were circulated. Over 1,400 different designs 
for posters, cartoons, window cards, billboards, newspaper advertisements, 
buttons, and seals were made. In addition there was Mr. McAdoo’s 
“stupendous organization” for the Liberty Loans, Mr. Hoover’s far- _ 
reaching propaganda in behalf of food conservation, and the Red Cross 
and similar campaigns.** In consequence a tremendous amount of opinion 
was generated by the Government in behalf of fighting “to make the world 
safe for democracy.” | 

A picturesque and dramatic illustration of a drawn out but none the — 
less intense program to influence public opinion and to get the desired 
change registered, was the woman suffrage movement in the United — 
States, which was really one “pauseless campaign” of fifty-two years — 
duration. It included sub-campaigns as follows: | 


Fifty-six campaigns of referenda to male voters, 480 campaigns to get 
legislatures to submit amendments to voters; 47 campaigns to get state consti- — 


tutional conventions to write woman suffrage into state constitutions, 277 — 


campaigns to get state party conventions to include woman suffrage planks; 30 — 
campaigns to get presidential party conventions to adopt suffrage planks in 
party platforms, and 19 campaigns with 19 successive Congresses.” . 


In all this the major appeals were divided between the voters, and the 
machinery of the dominant political parties who from 1860 on, “used 
their enormous organized power to block every move on behalf of woman — 
suffrage.” *° 


* Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion, p. 46. ¥ 
* Tbid., p. 47. i 
et and Shuler, Woman Suffrage and Politics, p. 107. i 

id. $ 





GROUP OPINION 293 


The problem of free speech and a free press holds a vital relation to 
public opinion. To the extent that free speech is denied, group opinion 
becomes a factory product rather than a natural growth. In countries 
of special privilege free speech is curtailed until no opinions may be 
expressed hostile to the maintenance of the ruling classes in power. In 
Russia czarism and “proletarian dictatorship” have alike shot down sincere 
persons who dared to attack the class in political power. 

Free speech does not mean license to destroy ruthlessly but rather 
liberty to build constructively. Those in power have a responsibility to 
stimulate, and to respond to a genuine freedom of speech, to take well- 
intentioned criticism at what it is worth, and thus to promote the growth 
of a healthy public opinion. 


SCIENTIFIC OPINION 


Group opinion is most reliable when all group members follow certain 
principles. These include (1) personal experiences extending over a 
period of time. Experiences of the moment are less apt to be truly repre- 
sentative of life than those brought by the social contacts of many years. 
(2) The experiences of one’s associates add sidelights. They multiply one’s 
points of contact and give a surer foundation to opinion. (3) By learning 
from the experiences of those who are living in social environments widely 
different from one’s own, it is possible to broaden immeasurably one’s 
knowledge and likewise arrive at sounder opinions. (4) By drawing upon 
the experiences of all who have lived and thought deeply in past genera- 
tions it is possible still further to enhance the value of opinion. Through 
the published experiences of people living in distant lands and ages the 
whole world of experience, past and present, is brought to the individual’s 
door. It is possible, therefore, to make group opinion scientific if all the 
members will take pains to base their personal opinions only on facts,— 
facts derived from personal experiences, from the experiences of asso- 
ciates, from the experiences of the representatives of other social environ- 
ments, and from the experiences which have been integrated in the ripe 
judgments of the past. 


PUBLIC OPINION AND DEMOCRACY 


In political democracies public opinion is supposed to be registered 
periodically at the ballot box; but the complexity of modern civilization 


294. FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


ERAN I0 0 Le th) Pens natasniass te ee ss 9 LN LES LS ccnmemtaiemcc mma n + 


makes this registering of opinion difficult. Issues become interwoven 
with personalities so often that the voter at times must choose, on the 
one hand, between a good candidate with a bad gang behind him, and 
a bad candidate with advanced principles. This intricacy is so baffling 
that the stay-at-home tendency is encouraged. The “party” emphasis 
likewise is stifling, for he who always “votes the ticket straight” has sur- 
rendered his political thinking to bosses, politicians, and special interests, 
and figures not at all in creating new and valuable public opinion. 

Opinions on public issues are “tied up in two antagonistic bundles,” the 
party “platforms,” and all the voter can do is to vote for one bundle 
rather than the other, although each contains opinions he disapproves of. 
Hence, no one can figure out from an election just what is the state 
of political public opinion. The significance of an election is apt to be 
ambiguous. 

Public opinion is active in regulating public administration. When the 
public never visits the sessions of the City Council except on private - 
business, the administration of public affairs grows lax and graft creeps 
in. Private interests dominate. But where the public from a social wel- 
fare viewpoint takes an active interest in what its representatives are 
doing, the administration at once gains in social efficiency. | 

Democracy would be impossible without public opinion. In no other 
way can the will of the people function. To the extent that public opinion 
is free and unhampered, that it is not cajoled and exploited by private 
interests, that it is not dictated by the Government, that it arises naturally 
from an enlightened and socially responsible populace, democracy gives 
better results. Democracies, therefore, need to devote a large amount 
of attention to the functioning of public opinion. 

In a democracy law fails unless it has the support of public opinion. 
A law becomes a dead letter when public approval forsakes it. There is 
a constant interaction between law and public opinion, but in general the 
latter is primary. When opinion becomes strong enough to secure a law, 
and then vigorously supports public officers until a generation develop 
habits of obedience to the specific law, its active support may be dispensed 
with. 

When a law is put through by a zealous minority a period of lawless- 
ness follows. Administrative officials in quarters where opinion against 
the law runs strong are unable to do their sworn duty. Insincere persons 
surreptitiously secure appointment to enforce the law, and then wink 
at its violation. No law is safe until supported by the habitual opinions: 
of perhaps 75 per cent of the citizens. | 


ee 


GROUP OPINION 295 


THE RADIO PUBLIC 


The radio bids fair to become a large factor in creating public opinion. 
Government officials broadcast income tax information to large radio 
publics; questions are answered and people are instructed in making 
out their tax returns. Candidates for Congress address their districts 
by radio. Already there are several hundred broadcasting stations in 
our country, with, it is estimated, over three million daily “listening in.” 
By radio it may soon be possible to bring a whole nation together at a 
given hour, transforming it into a gigantic public. It will perhaps not 
be long before the Chief Executive, in addition to reading an annual 
message to a few hundred Congressmen, will “speak naturally and with 
his own voice’ to the whole nation. In times of national crisis it will 
be possible to generate an inclusive public opinion among a hundred 
million people in a few hours’ time. With wireless telephony leaping 
oceans and sending its messages by relay systems from continent to con- 
tinent, the radio public may yet function to make the whole world one. 


OPINION AND GROUP VALUES 


Public opinion integrates around values. In course of time every public 
develops a set of values, or objects which it is willing to sacrifice for. 
In the case of the nation they include: (1) the symbols of its nature, 
such as its flag, its heroes, its ceremonies, its racial and religious symbols ; 
(2) its property, chiefly its territory; (3) its cohesion, and (4) its “time- 
honored”’ institutions.*” 

1. Public opinion easily becomes crystallized around symbols, such 
as the flag, national monuments, historic trees, national heroes. In these 
the group becomes personified. They become sacred and not to be criti- 
cized. Wilson or Roosevelt may still be publicly attacked, but not Lincoln 
or Washington. 

2. Any invasion by a foreign power of the nation’s territory is at once 
met by a united and angry public opinion. The simple spreading of the 
news that an enemy has crossed the boundary line is more effective than 
years of argument in unifying opinion. 

3. Group cohesion is rated high. Let any faction menace it, and 
public opinion rises automatically. Witness the Civil War in the United 
States. In all such cases the united opinion is not thought out, but rather 


"Cf. F. H. Giddings, Principles of Sociology (Macmillan, 1896), p. 148. 


296 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


is produced by arid borne aloft on gigantic feeling waves and desires 
for security. 

4. Instruments of government, such as a Constitution, become sacred. 
It is almost impossible to abolish the antiquated “electoral college” in the 
United States. A king and a House of Lords are maintained tenaciously 
in England. 

The continuity of group opinion is perhaps its greatest value. It ordi- 
narily changes slowly and in unnoticed ways. A person holds one set 
of opinions today but some years later may discover himself ridiculing 
them. Opinion is tenacious, even refusing to give way before facts. 
Despite its weakness in this regard, it is strongly meritorious in holding 
a group together through the vicissitudes of time. 


THE TREND OF PUBLIC OPINION 


All politicians give attention to finding out the drift of public opinion. . 
In many cases being a politician consists chiefly in finding out this drift, 
and clothing one’s interests in whatever harmonizes with the drift as a 
means of getting them realized. A chief executive, as did President 
Harding, may not wish to initiate anything contrary to the will of the — 
people or even to influence it, but if he can find out what it wishes, 
he aims to do its bidding. The process of determining the trend of public 
opinion is intricate and baffling. Successful politicians develop surprising 
accuracy in calculating the trend. Now and then they miss it as in the 
case of a former postmaster general who made a Christmas spirit appeal 
on behalf of a debarred motion picture actor, which appeal was met by 
a flood of protest from all over the United States. 

Statesmen are more apt to err in gauging public opinion than politicians, 
for they are not so able to keep in touch with all classes. President 
Wilson’s appeal in November, 1918, to the public to elect Democratic 
Congressmen illustrates well the possibility of error. Lloyd George, 
however, was so good a judge of public opinion that in the several years 
of his premiership he put forth contradictory programs in his attempts 
to do “the will of the people.” He who would correctly measure the 
trend of public opinion must keep daily company not with a few 
“trusted” advisers or a particular “set” or professional group; he can 
make dependable judgments only “by moving freely about among all sorts 
and conditions of men and noting how they are affected by the news 
or the arguments brought from day to day to their knowledge.” ** 


% Bryce, Modern Democracies, 1: 156. 


GROUP OPINION 297 


MAKING PUBLIC OPINION 


More important than gauging public opinion is the process of making 
it. How is public opinion on any subject created? There are several 
distinct types of people who influence opinion. 1. In the first place 
there are the persons whose occupations make them representatives of 
public questions; they include legislators, judges, and administrative off- 
cials. These people are in the limelight, but often receive more credit 
than is their due as opinion creators. Even legislators usually follow 
group opinion rather than originate it. 

2. There are people who in their private professions, such as lawyers, 
clergy, journalists, motion picture actors, are dealing all the time in one 
way or another with group questions. Lawyers are continually “taking 
sides” on public issues, the clergy speaks from the pulpit from Sunday 
to Sunday, while the journalist and the motion picture actor are every 
day or several times daily engaged in expressing feelings and attitudes 
relating to problems of common interest. 

3. Behind groups (1) and (2) there are promoters and the represent- 
atives of special interests, who own or employ or dominate a vast army of 
legislators, lawyers, clergy, journalists, and motion picture actors. The ex- 
tent of this influence is admittedly great; its power is expressed so subtly 
and so indirectly that it must be ranked as one of the chief makers of 
group opinion. Periodically works of fiction or motion picture films 
appear in which the author or writer has used a worthy social value as 
a cloak for propaganda. Even thinking people are deceived thereby. 

John Galsworthy declares public opinion is no longer made by peoples 
but by three strong social institutions: 


To sum up, governments and peoples are no longer in charge. Our fate is 
really in the hands of the three great powers—Science, Finance, and the 
Press. Underneath the showy political surface of things, those three great 
powers are secretly determining the march of the nations; and there is little 
hope oor the future unless they can mellow and develop on international 
lines. 


Apropos of this observation is the announcement that Lords Rothermore 
and Beaverbrook have secured almost a monopoly of the popular press 
of Great Britain, that Hearst aspires to own a hundred daily newspapers, 
that Munsey has added the New York Globe to his New York Herald, 
Telegram, and Sun collection. The tendency of the metropolitan press 


” “Tnternational Thought: Key to the Future,” Living Age, Vol. 319, p. 309. 


298 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSY CHOLOGY 


“to pass into the hands of an ever-smaller body of rich men”’ is probably 
not wholesome for democracy. 

Of Galsworthy’s triumvirate, Finance is perhaps the chief offender, for 
it “buys up” both Science and the Press. “Politics” is another of its 
tools, especially in undermining fundamental social welfare. The woman 
suffrage movement began in 1848; it was expected to give women the 
vote, but “the years went by, decade following decade,” and twenty-six 
other countries gave the vote to their women while America delayed. 
“Why the delay?’ Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt and Nettie R. Shuler answer 
their own question, showing how public opinion was throttled even in 
a democracy.” 


It was not an antagonistic public sentiment, nor yet an uneducated or 
indifferent public sentiment—it was the control of public sentiment, through 


the trading and the trickery, the buying and the selling of American politics. 


Propaganda is as old as mankind. It is either open, or secret. In | 
the latter form it is most dangerous for it hoodwinks. When used to 
deceive people regarding public questions it sinks to the pernicious. Note 
the following characterization : 

Propaganda is twin brother to advertising, but goes beyond commercial 
advertising in that control of fundamental attitudes on great issues is sought, 


and not infrequently for no perceptible benefit to the people whose sentiments 
are thus commandeered and dominated.” 


4. There are those who are scientifically trained in the analysis 
of social situations or who are interested in people and personalities 
above all things else, who have combined their love of humanity with a 
broad vision, and who in journals, magazines, in public schools and col- 
leges, on the lecture platform and in the pulpit, are devoting their lives 
to creating progressive and helpful group opinions. Sometimes these 
people become ardent champions and fight courageously for woman 
suffrage, prohibition, or workmen's compensation. Sometimes they labor 
quietly as social workers. At times their influence upsets the achieve- 
ments of group (3), and again, is defeated by this same group. 

5. There is a large number of citizens, engaged on the farm, in the 
shop or marketplace, in the home attending to “their own business,” who 
are characterized by common sense, human sympathy, and a sense of 
fair play, and who now and then, as occasion demands, express them- 
selves on public questions.*? There is always a large amount of talking 


* Woman Suffrage and Politics (Scribners, 1923), P. Vill. 
aA. D. Weeks, The Control of the Social Mind (Appleton, 1923), p. 72. 
Bryce, Modern Democracies, I: 156 ff. 


GROUP OPINION 299 


and reading going on among them, but only on the rare occasions when 
they are aroused to action is their influence great. They constitute a crude 
moral force, and furnish substantial material for the organization of a 
third party when the “old parties” or alignments grow reactionary. 

6. Also numerous are those who do little thinking and reading, and 
who are not interested in public matters at all. Their horizons are very 
limited. They vote as “Bill” or “Tom” tells them to vote. Their sense 
of social responsibility is almost nil. 

7. A small group of makers of public opinion are composed of 
“radicals,” “agitators,” and persons who are “agin” everything that exists, 
and feel that since things are about as bad as possible, any change will 
be an improvement. These persons are usually “up against’ the harshest 
phases of life, and influence public opinion chiefly by calling attention to 
unendurable conditions. 


THE GROUP MIND 


Integrated opinion represents the group mind. Mental creativeness 
in small assemblies is the group mind at its best. The contagion of a 
crowd or mob represents the group mind in its most openly energetic and 
almost vicious forms. To the extent that a person acts differently in a 
group from his actions as an individual, we verify the reality of a group 
mind. Such a mind does not exist outside the minds of persons, and 
yet it is far more than the mere aggregate of these, for it includes group 
loyalty and group morale, the themes of two succeeding chapters, 
but most important of all, the mental creativeness which results from 
intersocial stimulation in assembly and discussion groups. 

The group mind possesses a conscience. Like the “conscience” of 
the individual, the group conscience includes not only opinion but senti- 
ment and judgment. It is the group passing judgment on its members, 
group movements, and other groups, but rarely on itself as a group, 
and hence, the reason for the phrase, the conscienceless group. It com- 
bines sentiments and feelings with opinions, and possesses ethical quality. 


PRINCIPLES 


1. Group opinion originates in talk, experiences, points of view, and 


tradition. apd 
2. The unreliability of much group opinion is due to the false pictures 


which people have in their heads. 


300 


CONE OVU1 


10. 


howd 


Lom 
OO ON Dm 


s 
wO eS 


=" 
W 


io) 


. What “pictures in the heads” of anyone whom you know do you 


FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


_ Group opinion is more than an aggregate of opinions; it includes 


opinion created in persons by their interchange of opinion. 


. Group opinion may be as tyrannical as an autocrat; the voice of even 


a majority may be relentless. 


. Democracy is realized to the extent that there is freedom of opinion. | 
. Opinion becomes crystallized into group values. 

. Law is spineless without the support of public opinion. 

_ The trend of public opinion can best be sensed by talking regularly 


with persons in all walks of life. 


_In the making of public opinion several different types of people 


are involved; the two most important are the powerful but sinister 
and secret promoters of opinion in behalf of private interests, and 
the socially-minded public speakers and educators. 

The totality of public opinion at any time constitutes the group mind. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. What is group opinion? 
. What are traditions? 


What is meant by “the pictures in our heads’ ? 


. How do you account for the tyranny of the majority? 
. Why is public opinion so often mistaken ? 


What forces tend to corrupt public opinion? 
Why is public opinion vital to democracy ? 
What is the relation of public opinion to law? 


. How may the tendencies of public opinion be observed? 


In what ways is the press helpful in molding public opinion ?. 
’ 


Harmful ? 


. How does public opinion determine the policies of the press? 
_ What would you say is the chief characteristic of the group mind? 
. Compare the group mind and the social conscience. : 


PROBLEMS 


t 
: 
f 
. In what ways is group opinion different from personal opinion? : 
. What practical ways could you use to shift group opinion toward 


your opinions ? : 


consider inaccurate ? 


GROUP OPINION 301 


4. How may a democracy safeguard itself against “the tyranny of the 
majority”? 

5. Is a strong political party system, such as we have in the United 
States, on the whole favorable or unfavorable to the development 
of a sound public opinion ? 

6. What is a better method of getting at the truth of a question than 
the debating society method? 

7. Compare the group minds of any two groups of which you are a 
member. 

8. What is the relation of leadership to the mass of the people in the 

| formation of public opinion? 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Bryce, James, Modern Democracies (Macmillan, 1921), Vol. I, Chs. 
XV, XXIV, XXXVI. 

Cooley, C. H., Social Process (Scribners, 1918), Ch. XXXI. 

Social Organization (Scribners, 1909), Chs. XII, XIII. 

Lowell, A. Lawrence, Public Opinion and Popular Government (Mac- 
millan, 1922). 

Lippmann, Walter, Public Opinion (Harcourt, Brace: 1921). 

Mecklin, J. M., Introduction to Social Ethics (Harcourt, Brace and 
Howe: 1920), Ch. IX. 

Ross, E. A., Social Psychology (Macmillan, 1908), Ch. XXII. 








CHAPTER XXVI 
GROUP LOYALTY 


OYALTY is one of the most important products of intersocial stim- 

ulation. In its essence it is love. A person can find out what his 

loyalties are by asking himself the question: What am I willing to 
sacrifice for? 

Loyalty is engendered by the recognition of benefits received. An 
immigrant will be loyal to his homeland if it represents social values, 
sacred memories, loved ones. He acquires loyalty to a new country to 
the extent that it treats him well, in wages, a home, promotion, protection, 
friendship. If we are benefited by something, we tend to develop a 
loyalty to that thing. If it be inanimate, we personify it, think of it in 
terms of a social relationship, hold communion with it, and imagine 
social interactions. 

Group loyalty is wholly natural since human beings are group made 
as well as self made. They are inherently social, and behind the most 
anti-social actions there may be group influences. It is chiefly in the 
play-day of childhood that group loyalties are stimulated in human beings. 
In associating with parents, and particularly with other children, the 
child experiences the growth of his social nature, or of social personality. 
Through such association, the spirit of appreciation is developed. The 
individual learns that others have feelings, desires, problems, sufferings 
which are similar to his own. In consequence, social attitudes are formu- 
lated, group loyalties arise, and socially harmonious actions follow. . 

Some loyalties the child experiences indirectly, such as loyalty to 
parents, without appreciating them fully until many years have passed, 
or perhaps never. When crises come, accidents, severe illnesses, then 
one becomes aware of his loyalties. When something is in danger then 
one’s loyalty to it is easily tested. M 

Group loyalty has one of its best known expressions in patriotism. 
“An abiding affection for the fatherland and for principles of liberty, 
of opportunity, and of fraternity which the group may have worked 
out represent the highest social appraisals,” * and hence the highest group 
loyalties. By studying patriotism we may obtain a clear insight into the 


1F, H. Giddings, Principles of Sociology, pp. 117 ff. 
302 


Bee es, 


GROUP LOYALTY 303 


nature of group loyalty, which however, ranges all the way from family 
loyalty, “gang” loyalty, college loyalty, to national and perhaps world 
loyalty. 


PATRIOTISM 


Patriotism is a form of group loyalty. It is the response which is 
excited by an attack upon the group values. It is a complex sentiment, 
compounded largely of feelings and desires for security, but tempered as 
personality develops by an increasing degree of cognition and a thought- 
ful interpretation of group values. 

Patriotism is as old as human affection. It originally was love of fam- 
ily or more particularly loyalty to the pater, or the patriarchal head of 
the family. At one time in its evolution patriotism was synonymous with 
patriarchalism and with familism. Again, it was love of home; at 
another time, love of clan. In the days of Abraham, it was loyalty to 
Abraham and his household. Among mountaineers to-day patriotism 
is clan loyalty. In the hey-day of tribal society, patriotism was loyalty 
to the tribe; it was tribalism. Among the Bantus, patriotism is Bantu- 
loyalty. Among the Iroquois, patriotism was loyalty to the Confederacy. 

With the rise of the civil state, patriotism became nationalism. To-day 
among civilized peoples patriotism is almost synonymous with loyalty 
to the nation. It is a sentiment which manifests a deep attachment to 
geographic territory, national symbols, heroes, and traditions. The Psalm- 
ist illustrated the force of patriotism when he declared : ? 


By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remem- 
bered Zion. 

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. 

If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, 
if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy. 


Patriotism is also loyalty to patria—by birth or by adoption. A person 
‘identifies his life with that of his country. He becomes an integral and 
controlling factor in its aims and activities. In time of war patriotism 
sets afire his desires for new experience and for recognition. Patriotism 
appeals to his social nature, and satisfies his desire for security. It enables 
him to expand beyond the limitations of his personality and to identify 
himself with interests which are larger and more important than his own. 

Under national patriotism, familism continues. He who is not loyal to 
his family scarcely knows how to be loyal to his nation. If one is not 

*Psalm 137. 


304 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


eee NAAN SSN. Bi, MAES TaN El RRR ASS 
true to a small social unit, how can he be faithful to a large collectivity ? 
National loyalty, on the other hand, that has no room for family loyalty 
or any of the other primary group loyalties is entirely unworthy. 

Under nationalism, tribalism in modified forms, also has a place. It 
takes the form of loyalty to local community, city, province, or state. 
Community loyalty is necessary in the building of a strong nation- 
state, otherwise there would be too great a hiatus between the national 
structure and the family groups. The national roof must be sustained 
by large, permanent pillars as well as by many small supports. Familism 
and communityism take subordinate but vital places in nationalism. 

The most powerful and overwhelming type of group loyalty that has 
yet developed is that form of national patriotism which arises in con- 
nection with national defense and national attack. At first it is usually 
highly emotional and charged with electrical feelings, and hence apt to be 
irrational and crowd-minded. It listens to no arguments, and jails 
dissenters. 

Group loyalty easily becomes group egocentrism.* The emphasis is 
easily placed on my fraternity, my church, my business. The group itself 
often acts egotistically in dealing with other groups, e.g., one religious 
denomination with another, one type of business with a competing type. 
Group egotism is fatal to the development of broad sympathies and co: 
operation. It is one of democracy’s greatest foes.* 


NATION-GROUP LOYALTIES 


The members of a nation-group may be classified under one or more 
of several headings regarding their national ioyalty. ‘There are many 
brands and grades of nationalism, or nation-group loyalties. q 

1. Pugnacious patriotism is an over-development of the combative im- 
pulses. There are persons who are habitually on the lookout for trouble. 
As some are fussy about their personal dignity, and imagine themselves 
slighted under almost any circumstances, so there are those who are pro- 
vincial in imagining or magnifying national provocations. Many persons 
are willing to rush their country into war upon the slightest excuse. If 
an American in a foreign country has been insulted or killed—regardless 
of his guilt—these pugnacious persons would have their country declare 
} 
* Referred to in Chapter XXIV. _ vt 

C. A. Ellwood, Reconstruction in Religion (Macmillan, 1922), ’ 


GROUP LOYALTY 305 


war immediately. Jingoists abound. Combative patriotism does not wait 
for an investigation of causal circumstances. It works continuously for 
an aggressive foreign policy; it is impatient with negotiation, and is 
prejudiced and irrational. 

2. Professional patriotism characterizes many of the military and 
naval classes. It is valuable in a society where force predominates. Its 
weakness is its tendency toward arrogance, hard-heartedness, and an 
exaggerated desire for recognition. The promotion ambition is illustrated 
in the extreme case of the officer who some years ago expressed a hope 
that the United States would declare war upon Panama, after Panama had 
committed a slight breach of courtesy. When asked for his reasons, he 
candidly replied: ‘“‘Because my chances for promotion would be greatly 
increased.” 

3. Profiteering patriotism raises its blasé features in spite of the need 
for war sacrifices. After the entry of the United States into the World 
War, the cry was raised, “Business as usual.” But everyone knew that 
if the war was to be won, business could not go on as usual. Before the 
United States declared war, the dividends of certain companies which 
were manufacturing war materials rose rapidly, and after our war declar- 
ation, the war profits of these firms created millionaires. One American 
openly and shamelessly boasted: “This war has surely been a fine thing 
for me. If it lasts two years, I will have made enough money to live 
in leisure the rest of my life.” While 70,000 American soldiers were 
giving up their lives during the war, it is estimated that 18,000 American 
millionaires were made. 

Another profiteering patriot sold to the government shoddy clothing 
for the soldiers and sailors. Still another set up wooden images of the 
Kaiser, and playing upon the war feelings of the passers-by, invited 
them to “Swat the Kaiser’—for ten cents a throw. A theater owner 
subscribed heavily to one of the war funds and then advertised that 
fact widely. His theater drew unusually large crowds of people, who 
felt that they should patronize such an unusually generous proprietor and 
“patriot.” The profiteer hoists the flag, but locks up coal in his mines 
while women and children suffer from the cold. He buys up foodstuffs 
and holds them while prices rise and people starve. 

4. Faddish patriotism gives benefit “teas” in war time, despite the fact 
that such affairs provide an unnecessary fourth meal. A young woman 
who wore a service star was found to have no nearer relative in the World 
War than a cousin whom she had never seen. She easily justified to 


306 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


To 


herself this action on the grounds that “all the other girls were wearing 
service stars.” In certain cases the carrying of flags upon the front of 
automobiles is faddish patriotism. Shortly after the United States de- 
clared war in 1917, as high as forty per cent of automobiles in some 
communities carried flags, but six months later the proportion fell to 
less than five per cent. In the meantime, however, the real patriotism 
of the people had greatly increased. , 

s. Patriotism is sometimes adventuresome. It appeals to the desire 
for new experience. The slogan “Join the navy and see the world, ” recog- 
nizes this adventuresome element. In the World War there were many 
young men who volunteered, stating that they were moved strongly by the 
desire to go abroad and see “the sights,’ and who were willing to risk 
returning alive. 

6. Conspicuous patriotism exhausts itself in applauding the flag or in 
patriotic statements, but whines when asked to observe meatless days 
and to refrain from using wheat bread. It carries the flag, but secretly 
encourages profiteering and self-indulgence. It is generally hypocritical; 
it evaporates in patriotic statements. The conspicuous patriot loudly 
abuses others for not going to war—when he knows that he can remain 
safe at home. 

7. Pacific patriotism is two-fold. (1) There are group members whe 
believe in peace at any price. As practical citizens they are mistaken 
and sometimes dangerous. It is necessary in times of group crises te 
be willing to fight to save those social values which the group through 
the slow process of time has acquired. As long as powerful national 
wolves are loose in the world, it is folly to believe in peace at any price 
In such a case a nation may be called on to fight not only for itself 
but for the values which civilization has slowly and painfully constructed. 
Peace-at-any-price individuals possess a willingness to undergo hard- 
ships and even to die for the principles they represent. They frequently 
possess those fine moral qualities which cannot be found in the loyal 
but truculent chauvinist. 

(2) The other type of pacifist patriot tries all honorable methods 0: 
solving international controversies before resorting to war. In ordinary 
peace times most Americans would come within this category. Such per 
sons believe in the principles of peace rather than of war as means of prog: 
ress. In time of war, however, such a declaration is likely to be grossl 
misunderstood. At such a time any type of pacifist is anathema. 

8. Provincial patriotism magnifies and places the interests of one sec 
tion of the country ahead of the welfare of the whole nation. It measures 


GROUP LOYALTY 307 


long distances with the yard-stick that it uses in its own provincial 
area. It opposed the Louisiana Purchase and the acquisition of the Philip- 
pines. It would settle the Japanese problem in the United States ir- 
respective of international justice. It would prevent our nation from 
functioning fully in the League of Nations. Today, as in the time of 
Epaminondas, there are too many provincial patriots. 

9. Chauvinistic patriotism is boastful loyalty; it is dominated by 
watchwords and phrases. It is the direct descendant of the boastful at- 
titudes of lower races. It wildly shouts “My country, right or wrong,” 
when its country may be already on the rocks of greed and injustice. It 
forgets that the slogan, “My country, right or wrong,’ made Germany a 
menace to the world. It does not possess the courage to face national 
evils and to assist constructively in righting maladjustments, thereby 
strengthening the nation. 

10. True national patriotism is based on the belief that there must be 
nation-groups as necessary intermediate structures between the family 
and the community on one hand and the world order on the other. One 
comes to love his native land, even though its faults may be many. 
Wherever one finds food and shelter and kindly ministrations, one feels 
patriotic. 

True national patriotism is national love divorced from all narrow 
desires. It urges that one’s nation group play a rdle of wholesomeness in 
the world. It is expressed not only in exciting war times, but in the 
most monotonous days of peace. True patriotism functions in both peace 
and war, but it is far more difficult to be patriotic in peace than in war. 
In the routine days of the work-a-day world, private interests press for- 
ward and command attention. As a result, a person forgets to go to the 
polls, neglects to study the merits of candidates, fails to keep in touch 
with his representatives in legislative and administrative positions—in 
short, to be fully patriotic. 

11. Super-patriotism is a high order of true national patriotism. It 
gives all for the sake of its nation when the nation is fighting righteously. 
Super-patriots include the Joan of Arcs and the Nathaniel Hales, the 
heroes of Zeebrugge and the Argonne, and the unknown, brave mothers 
and fathers who have given up sons and daughters anywhere in a worthy 
cause. 


WORLD LOYALTIES 


Besides loyalty to family, to community, to nation-state, the trend of 
social evolution is producing another type of group loyalty—internation- 


308 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


a 


alism. The world is on the verge of forming an international conscious- 
ness and a sense of planetary values. President Wilson’s famous pleas 
for world-wide democracy and the organization of the friendship of the 
world are forerunners of the rise of a new world society. 

International loyalties are illustrated by two leading types. (1) In- 
dustrial internationalism holds that the industrial classes throughout all 
countries should organize in a world order and renounce the existing 
national governments as being the tools of capitalism. Industrial inter- 
nationalism is an outgrowth of Marxian socialism and is closely allied to 
Communism. Industrial internationalism fails to recognize that its 
program runs counter to the laws of social evolution and of democratic 
growth. No stable international order can be built on class consciousness 
alone. A permanent world structure cannot be suspended in mid-air, sup- 
ported chiefly by personal, familial, or communal units. 

(2) Democratic internationalism is scientifically founded. Upon per- 
sons, the family rests. Upon family groups, the community, city, or 
province depends. Upon persons, families, and communities, the nation 
relies. Upon all these constituent elements, and only so, an enduring world 
organization can be constructed. Ordinarily family loyalty fits harmon- 
iously into national loyalty, without disrupting or weakening the former. 
Similarly, there is no reason why national loyalty should suffer by lo- 
cating it properly within the boundaries of democratic internationalism. 
A person who has learned rational loyalty to his nation will be no less a 
national patriot by catching a vision of the larger internationalism. Demo- 
cratic internationalism is built upon the highest virtues and the best moral 
characteristics of the nation. It recognizes that points of view naturally 
vary in different national habitats. It promotes the principles: Come, let 
us reason together. 

Democratic internationalism would dignify nationalism and make it a 
nobler sentiment. It would end economic conflict between nations for 
the same reason that such conflicts were stopped between the colonies when 
the United States was formed.’ It would eventually raze military and 
naval barriers between nations on the same basis that it has never been 
necessary to separate the United States from Canada by fortifications 
and dreadnoughts. 

Planetary good feeling will develop concomitantly with an enlarged 
means of communication and a world-wide cultural uniformity. While 
commerce and religion have strong international organizations, education 


°Other phases of this type of international patriotism may be found in Chapter 
VI of The New Patriotism by C. E. Fayle. 


GROUP /LOYACTY 309 


is still represented on a world scale only by international congresses on 
various subjects. 


HYPHENISM 


Hyphenism is double loyalty or loyalty to two groups in the same class, 
such as national groups. If a person is living in and being protected by 
one nation group but feels more loyalty to some other nation, he is guilty 
of hyphenism. Immigrants from advanced countries often find it diffi- 
cult to give up their loyalty to the homeland. The loyalty of an English 
or German immigrant to his native land is apt to persist for many years. 
His problem of giving up a loyalty to one country is one of the hardest 
that faces any person. He probably cannot give up wholly the homeland 
loyalty, especially if his childhood days in the home country have been 
happy, and if his parents or other loved ones lie buried there. When a 
man marries he does not give up his loyalty to his mother, and should 
not. The loyalty to the original home group may remain in the form of a 
sacred memory. 

National hyphenism is likely to take dangerous forms in war times. 
The loyalty to an “enemy” country may lead one to furnish valuable 
information to that country. Hyphenism easily produces spies. It leads 
to treason, which is owing loyalty to one group, while surreptitiously sup- 
porting an opposing group. The pretense of a loyalty which is false 
makes treason especially despicable. A modified form of treason is shown 
by the profiteer, by the revolutionary propagandist in a democracy, by 
anyone who publicly professes a love for democracy and justice but who 
in business or privately violates laws or connives at exploitation. 


UNIVERSAL LOYALTIES 


Philosophy and religion have formulated still more comprehensive 
group loyalties. Philosophy has often projected a loyalty to the universe, 
but this loses its richest quality when it becomes materialistic or imper- 
sonal. When personality is entirely removed from any set of group 
values it fails to possess a wide appeal. 

Christianity has dared to project a loyalty which includes not only the 
present world group, but also that unnumbered host who have run well 
and finished this earthly course, in fact, a vast society of which the living 
earthly group is but a manifestation. Christianity has been so radical that 
unto familism, tribalism, nationalism, internationalism, it has added univer- 
salism in the sense of a loyalty to a society—the Kingdom of God—infinite 


310 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


in size and character, without beginning and without end, and composed 
of an endless variety of personalities who have developed out of life’s 
vicissitudes, who are controlled by perfect love, and who are organized 
according to the principle of serving one another and the Perfect 
Personality. 


PRINCIPLES 


1. Group loyalty is love for one’s group that is engendered by the recog- 
nition of benefits received. 

>. Patriotism is a common expression of group loyalty. 

3. Patriotism, originating in loyalty to patriarchal group, and running 
through various stages such as tribalism, monarchism, is now ex- 
pressed most commonly as nationalism. 

4. There are many types of patriotism, namely pugnacious, profes- 
sional, profiteering, faddish, adventuresome, conspicuous, pacifist of 
two types, provincial, chauvinistic, true nationalism, and super- . 
nationalism. 

5. World group loyalty appears as different forms of internationalism, 
the best known types being industrial internationalism and demo- 
cratic internationalism. . 

6. Greater loyalty to one’s homeland group than to one’s adopted group 
is hyphenism, with tendencies to treason. 

7. Universal loyalties have been developed by philosophy and religion. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. What is group loyalty? 

. How are crises related to loyalty? 

. What is patriotism ? 

. Explain: “A great deal of so-called patriotism is but the crowd emo- 
tion of the nation.” 

- What has been the evolutionary history of patriotism? 

- What is the relation of nation-group loyalty to primary group loyalty, 
such as love of family? 

7. Compare pugnacious and professional patriotism. 

8. What makes profiteering patriotism possible ? 

9. Compare faddish and conspicuous patriotism. 

O 

I 


LES AS) el and 


OV un 


. Why are some people pacifists ? 
. What are two leading types of pacifists? 
12. Compare provincial and chauvinistic patriotism. 


GROUP LOYALTY 311 


13. What is the relation of nationalism to internationalism? 
14. What is there about treason that makes it despicable ? 
15. What is world loyalty? 


PROBLEMS 


1. To how many groups at the present time do you feel loyal? Rank 
in order your feelings of loyalty. 

. How can loyalty best be engendered in the non-loyal ? 

. How can loyalty be developed in the disloyal? 

. What is your own definition of patriotism? 

. Name and illustrate a type of patriotism which is not discussed in 

this chapter. 

6. Can a good patriot be a bad citizen? 

7. How do you rate the patriotism in the sentiment: My country, right 
or wrong? 

8. What could Veblen have meant when he said that “patriotism is use- 
ful for breaking the peace, not for keeping it.” 

9g. What is “patrioteering”’ ? 

10. When is it easiest to be patriotic? 

11. Rate each of the types of patriotism mentioned in this chapter in 
order of the quality of loyalty. 

12. What is the chief basis for religious loyalty, “agreement in belief or 
agreement in ideal”? 

13. Can one be a good nationalist and internationalist at the same time? 

14. Is it practical to be a world patriot at the present time? 


wn BB Ww Wh 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Brown, H. C., “Social Psychology and the Problem of a Higher Nation- 
ality,’Intern. Jour. of Ethics, XXVIII: 19-30. 

Coleman, J. M., Social Ethics (Baker-Taylor, 1903), Chs. VI, VII. 

Cooley, C. H., Social Organization (Scribners, 1909), Part VI. 

Crawshay-Williams, E., “The International Idea,” Intern. Jour. of Ethics, 
XXVIII: 273-92. 

Fayle, C. Ernest, The New Patriotism (Harrison & Sons, London, 1914). 

Giddings, F. H., Principles of Sociology (Macmillan, 1896), pp. 100-196. 

Democracy and Empire (Macmillan, 1900), Ch. IV. 

Hall, G. S., “Morale in War and After,” Psychological Bul., 15: 361-426. 

Hibben, J. G., “Higher Patriotism,” North. Amer. Rev., 201: 702-709. 





312 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


— 


SAMBA eM UIE POS Sc ARE ROG A 

Howard G. E., “Ideals as a Factor in the Future Control of International 
Society,” Publications of the American Sociological Society, 
XII: 1-10. | 

Howerth, I. W., Work and Life (Sturgis & Walton, 1913), Ch. XI. 

“Patriotism, Instinctive and Intelligent,” Educational Rev., 44: 
13-24. 

Inge, W. R., “Patriotism,” Quarterly Rev., 224: 71-93. , 

Kropotkin, Prince, Mutual Aid; a Factor in Evolution (Knopf, 1917). 

Lord, H. G., The Psychology of Courage (Luce, 1918), Ch. XIII. 

Maclver, R. M., Community, Bk. III (Macmillan, 1917), Ch. IV. 

Mathews, Shailer, Patriotism and Religion (Macmillan, 1918). 

Nicolai, G. F., The Biology of War (Century, 1918), Chs. VII-IX. 

Pillsbury, W. G., Psychology of N ationality and Internationalism ( Apple- 
ton, I9IQ). 

Spencer, Herbert, The Study of Sociology (Appleton, 1910), Ch. IX. 

Stewart, H. L., “Is Patriotism Immoral?” Amer. Jour. of Sociology, 22: 
616-30. 

Veblen, Thorstein, The Nature of Peace (Macmillan, 1917), Ch. I. 





CHAPTER XXVII 
GROUP CONFLICT 


Ca occur not only between persons, but also between 
groups. In an earlier chapter attention was given to conflict between 
ideas and between persons; group conflict will now be considered. This 
crops out in racial conflicts, conflicts of religious groups, between sections 
of a country, between industrial classes, political parties, and so on. 
In all their ramifications they encompass human life from every angle, 
building up some loyalties and breaking others, involving sacrifices of life 
and loved ones, wrecking even nations. 


PREJUDICE AND GROUP CONFLICT 


Berntn conflicts often reach back into ancient prejudices, and plunge ~- 
people into new and worse prejudices and hatreds. The past thus often 
forces the present into conflicts. Long-standing animosities keep swords 
well sharpened. As a result of past prejudices it takes but little to touch 
off a race riot in the South, a conflict between Mohammedanism and 
Christianity in Constantinople, and strife between Jew and Pole in the 
environs of Warsaw.\ Franco-German relationships are continually awry 
because of the jagged edges of past prejudices, and the Balkan states 
are perennially disturbed because of underlying, simmering hatreds. 


IGNORANCE AND GROUP CONFLICT 


The ignorant imagine conflicting tendencies where only the conservative _ 
and liberal phases of the same process are being expressed. The spokes 
on the opposite sides of a wheel might consider themselves enemies 
because they are continually going in opposite directions, but the hub 
notes a forward movement. The blind fist often strikes where the open 
eye sees no enemy. To one who views life from a local and individual 
Viewpoint only, imagined wrongs easily multiply. A myopic misunder- 
Standing of personal and national life easily begets the bellicose spirit. 

313 


314 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


Se ee ee se 


NATIONALISM AND GROUP CONFLICT 


National and race pride teaches every group that it is superior to all 
“others and consequently entitled to privileges. It also stresses the best 
points of one’s own group and the worst of other groups. National and 
race wrongs thus are easily imagined and “nationalists” become angry at 
affronts, and rush a whole people into war. A 100 per cent nationalism 
plus a zero internationalism equals potential war in the same way that a 
100 per cent loyalty to business interests plus a zero nationalism equals 
profiteering. 


EGOISM AND GROUP CONFLICT 


The desire for recognition and personal power causes leaders to drive 
groups into conflict. Napoleon did not love France so much as he loved 
himself. Group egoism likewise leads to conflict. Rome, Carthage, » 
Athens, Alexandria fell into aggressive warfare whenever selfish leaders 
ruled or group egoism became rampant. Whenever “frenzied finance,” 
“stubborn labor,” “shrewd politics,” or proselyting religion seek selfish 
power, conflict looms ahead. 


PUGNACITY AND GROUP CONFLICT 


One person’s desire to achieve is likely to clash with that of other 
persons. The desire for security is often stimulated and habitualized into 
fighting tendencies. When “the woods” seem full of foes a person 
naturally becomes combative or flees. Defensive measures may easily 
become aggressive, for the line between defense and aggression is often 
vague and dependent on mental attitude. How long shall one wait be- 
fore acting—until the enemy is at the door and at an advantage, when 
he is coming in the distance and can be ambushed, or before he has even 
started? Defense thus may easily reach out into offensive movements. 
The most “defensive” person may be he who has his offensive posts set 
out the farthest. 

Pugnacity resolves itself into powerful units of human energy organized 
in habits of quick response and attack. Once man had to depend for 
defense on the quick use of his fists, his club, or spear. Men who could 
not fight well in a hand-to-hand combat succumbed. 

With the development of private property, organized defense became 
necessary. Tribal groups that were unskilled in fighting lost their heads, 


GROUP CONFLICT BIS 


were captured and enslaved, or were wiped out by the more powerful 
tribes whose fighting strength made them a law unto themselves and hence 
ruthless toward weaker tribes. The modern flood tide of this doctrine was 
reached in the teachings of such men as Nietzsche and Bernhardi. 

The only groups that primitive fighting tribes respected were those 
whose prowess was established. Physical fighting propensities ruled the 
world for a thousand centuries. As a result fighting habits and traditions 
became greatly exaggerated. 


COUNTER MOVEMENTS TO CONFLICT 


Parallel to conflict a counter movement early originated. Among ani- 
mals and primitive peoples small groups of individuals lived harmoniously 
together. Codperation developed simultaneously with conflict, and the 
group spirit possessed a strong survival value. Within groups persons 
learned to respect difference of opinion and to build a code for settling 
disputes. Observance of this code prevented civil strife. The pistol duel 
is a sophisticated survival of personal conflicts in those groups which had 
established legal procedures. 


ALLEGED GOOD IN ARMED CONFLICT 


Despite the immeasurable suffering and destruction caused by armed 
conflict there are persons who champion it as being beneficial. It is said 
that military drill guarantees out-of-door life and the making of strong 
chest and leg muscles, that it counteracts slouchy habits of walking and 
standing, but these gains can be obtained through compulsory physical 
training. It is claimed that war develops habits of obedience and a respect 
for authority; but these are chiefly formal and can be developed through 
parental and educational means. 

The arguments that the soldier “gains in courage,” are thin. “War 
does not produce courage but consumes it.” The ends to which bravery 
is stimulated lessens sympathy and hardens the heart. A Boy Scout 
régime could develop courage “without thought of war.” 

It is urged that the soldier develops “an enlarged morality,” that instead 
of working for himself he joins with others in support of national pro- 
grams, that from self service he is turned to self sacrifice. The man of 
wealth accepts “a dollar a day” job, and the backwoodsman or peasant 
with a local point of view leaves home to help make “the world safe for 
democracy.” In reply, it has been said that war does not beget morality; 


316 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





it uses it up. Look at the egoism, greed, and want of social spirit in 
warlike countries, whether they have come through a war “victoriously” 
or have been defeated—they demonstrate that war results in moral ex- 
haustion. After the World War especially in the victorious belligerents, 
there was a going back in social attitudes and a resultant orgy of venal 
living. 

The group which fights gains temporarily in unity. Dissident elements 
are brought together and at least temporarily united. Attacks from the 
outside drive people together. A common danger brought the southern 
German states more closely into a German federation when France declared 
war in 1870, and kept Ireland fighting on the side of England in the World 
War. National enemies are more effective unifying factors than the hope 
or the experience of common happiness which arises from economic pros- 
perity.t This tendency is superficial and is usually followed by an over- 
growth of nationalism, a weakening of the middle class and an increase in 
internal dissension. 

War temporarily bans softness and luxury, and favors a brutal type 
of virility. Before the World War the United States was showing signs 
of fatty degeneration. Plain living and thrift were being forgotten and 
self-indulgence was spreading. To a degree, war-strain reveals weak 
spots in the nation and evokes national interest, paternalistic to be sure, 
in all denizens. This national activity tends to become harsh, compulsory, 
undemocratic. By quick gestures it throws all who “reason why” behind 
the bars. Further, at the close of a successful war, a nation backslides 
into riotous, wasteful living ; the profiteers in a defeated nation do likewise. 

War necessitates organization, but of the autocratic type. Witness the 
way in which our country organized in 1917 and 1918 for war—through 
the draft law, the government operation of railroads, the Liberty Loan 
“drives.” From such experiences a nation may learn valuable lessons in 
organizing in peace times for constructive and socialized ends. Most na- 
tions do retain some of the organization lessons learned in war, 
although suspicious of the socialistic and monopolistic tendencies war 
begets. 


MORAL AND SOCIAL EVILS OF WARFARE 


The evils of war are many. While the officer assumes responsibility, the 
man in the ranks is relieved of directive work and becomes machine-like. 
It is his business to obey and not to question or “to reason why.” It has 

*J. S. Mackenzie, Outlines of Social Philosophy (Macmillan, 1918), p. 247. 


GROUP CONFLICT 317 


been said that the less he thinks the better the soldier he will make. It is 
his duty “to do and die.” 

Military conflict tends first to make the officer and then the private 
autocratic. One day a big, handsome officer in a German regiment, wear- 
ing decorations of bravery, and receiving the personal commendations of 
the Kaiser, was approached by a little girl of five or six years old with a 
letter in her hand which she wished to post in a box behind the tall officer. 
She stood on her tiptoes but could not reach the box. She looked longingly 
for aid, and finally, summoning all her courage, she handed the letter to the 
officer. He took it mechanically, with one or two glances back and forth 
between it and her. His intellect was evidently less bright than his uni- 
form. Presently the idea took shape in his brain that this slip of a girl 
had called on him for help. With an arrogant toss of his head and a 
contemptuous snap of his wrist, he threw the letter to the ground.” 

The gigantic cost of warfare in dollars is insignificant compared to the 
cost in human suffering or to the brutalizing effects. The returned soldiers 
who went “over the top” refrain from describing the scenes in which they 
participated. “War confronts human beings with situations in which they 
must act inhumanly.* If you are going to kill systematically, it is necessary 
to hate systematically. After a war has continued for some time, hatred 
increases and ideals decline, and any measures which will help to bring 
victory or to postpone defeat are likely to be justified. War lying and 
calumniation rapidly increase. War is “brutal acknowledgment that na- 
tions have failed to live together harmoniously.’”* 

War is usually followed by a period of increased immorality, brutality, 
and violence. Habits of brutality survive the declaration of peace, and 
“hold-ups” and murders by boys in their “teens” are of frequent occur- 
rence.» Gun-play multiplies in the movies, and “the film of the Dempsey- 
Carpentier prize-fight, one of the most brutal exhibitions in recent times, 
is exploited for weeks in theatres before the admiring eyes of boys.’”® 

This post-warfare violence goes back to wartime practices. In referring 
to the World War, Clarence Darrow says: 


The highest rewards were offered for new and more efficient ways to kill. 
Every school was turned over to hate and preparation for war, and, of course, 
all the churches joined in the universal craze. God would not only forgive 


2Reported by Albion W. Small, Amer. Jour. of Sociology, XXIII: 167, 168. 

*G. F. Nicolai, The Biology of War (Century, 1918), p. 113. 

“George Elliott Howard, “The Social Puritan,” Jour. of Apphed Sociology, 
June-July, 1922, p. 4. 

* Ibid., p. 4. 

* Ibid. 


318 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


ee ee Ne  —— — — — ————————————————————  _ nn Le 


killing but reward those who were the most expert at the game... . The 
whole world talked of slaughter and devoted its energy to killing.’ 


Physical or mental violence begets more violence. Lynchings, night 
raiding, riots, religious persecution, war, all promote barbaric tendencies. 
Hooded night riders intimidate and resort to violence in attempting to 
keep Catholics or Jews from political or social power. On occasion, rep- 
resentatives of the law, even of sheriff’s offices, are found among the 
hooded illegal executors of law, and easily slip back into the use of 
torture and manslaughter. When respect for law vanishes there is a re- 
turn to secret and vicious methods of dealing with group offenders. 

War puts violence into the common mind. Life “loses something of 
its sanctity. Outrages of the most fiendish sort are reported so often 
that people become callous to them.” * War makes people excitable, men- 
tally unstable, easily given to rash deeds. ‘The suppression of the normal 
life of man by military discipline results in an increased action of strong 
impulses.” ® By war suppression, the ignorant are made reckless ; and the 
intellectual are made radical. 

“War is a profound and rapid maker of mental attitudes and of com- 
plexes that are quick to develop and slow to pass away.’*° By playing 
on the feelings war gets quick reactions, especially on the destructive sides 
of life, but these when once established, turn adamant. 

National groups on the slightest provocation still glare at one another 
like wolves. They do not yet possess dependable “habits” for settling 
disputes by discussion, but are developing group heritages which have no 
place for bloody combat. Even such nations however must be ready to 
defend themselves until all the powerful nations lay aside policies of 
aggression. 

Groups, especially large groups, fail to develop a sufficient sense of 
responsibility to prompt them to settle all their disputes by submitting them 
to impartial arbitrators. Corporations lack conscience; and morally, na- 
tions are atavistic. Big groups maintain secrecy, diplomacy, deception 
long after individuals submit their conflicts to discussion. 

Courts of law have developed until they now rule the behavior of 
nearly every person even when he is moved to right his wrongs by violent 
means. It is only the sportive or criminal American who carries a revolver, 
or the immigrant from lands governed by ancient traditions who conceals 

"Crime (Crowell, 1922), p. 214. 

*Cfi. E. T. Devine, Social Work (Macmillan, 1922), p. 178. 


J: M. Williams, Principles of Social Psychology (Knopf, 1922), p. 396. 
Clarence Darrow, Crime, p. 214. 


GROUP CONFLICT 319 


a dagger. Civilized people have refined the processes of living together 
peacefully and harmoniously ; they are learning as individuals to settle their 
conflicts by socialized means. When will they learn this lesson as groups? 


OUTLAWING WAR 


The evidences show that military conflict is one of the most destructive 
methods of solving controversies. The forecasts indicate that ‘“‘the next 
war” will annihilate in a short time the civilization that has been painfully 
built up during the past centuries. The discovery of deadlier gases than 
were known during the World War, that have no odor or smoke, that 
are heavier than air, that can be carried and dropped over cities by a fleet 
of airplanes electrically sent out, operated, and brought back, thus annihi- 
lating the whole population of men, women, and children,4—this fact 
alone is enough to startle the unthinking devotee of nationalism into 
working for a higher and better method of settling conflicts between na- 
tions. “In the war-after-the-next” says E. A. Ross, “the two belligerents 
almost simultaneously will launch over the enemy territory a huge fleet of 
airplanes, dropping containers of poison gas. After having done a work- 
manlike job, each fleet will return home to find its people blotted out. The 
crews of the air fleets will be the sole survivors of the first offensive. 
Thereafter they will never complain of lack of elbow room in their own 
country.”?? 

War conflicts cannot be ended merely by denouncing them, or by 
declaring that “this is a war to end war.’ Measures are needed for 
building up friendship among the nations of the world and of construct- 
ing international machinery that will run harmoniously, justly, and con- 
structively. A world community spirit, discussed elsewhere by the 
writer,!* is needed which will hold about the same relation to national 
patriotism that ‘patriotism now holds to family loyalty. A thorough 
revision of the prevailing sense of national group loyalties is essential.‘ 
A way out is to substitute rational discussion for physical fighting. 

The problem of outlawing military conflict becomes somewhat simpler 
when we remember that war is to a large extent a social malformation. 
Stupendous modern warfare is not a natural outgrowth of inherited ten- 
dencies to fight, but an artificial phenomenon, developing out of over- 

* Will Irwin, The Next War (Dutton, 1921), Ch. V. 

"In “Introduction” to Non- Violent Coercion (Century, 1923), ml C. M. Case. 


pene World as a Group Concept,” Jour. of Applied Sociology, Sept.-Oct. 1922, 


PP. 3 
WAS indicated in Chapter XXVI on “Group Loyalty.” 


320 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


a NEUTER on isa are 
population and the dividing of mankind into group units consciously 
fanned into racio-national hatreds.1* To undo war, therefore, it is 
necessary to undo or to submerge the racio-national hatreds and the excess 
national patriotisms that have developed.** The traditions of making 
secret treaties must be broken up, and open frank discussion, such as 
occurred at the Washington Conference on Limitation of Armaments, sub- 
stituted therefor. Nothing less than a world conscience can overrule 
military conflict. 

Further, the combative impulses need to be spiritualized and socialized. 
As shown in an earlier chapter, the self-assertive and pugnacious tenden- 
cies cannot be eliminated, but they may be organized into habits seeking 
socially constructive ends. Impulses to dominate need to be turned aside 
from egoistically aggressive goals. When this distinction is made clear to 
every person and a social heritage of codperative attitudes rules over 
conflict attitudes, conflict will be accorded its rightful level. 

To outlaw war will not be enough. Conflicts on higher levels, but in . 
subtler forms, are even more dangerous. S. J. Holmes has succinctly 
stated the point : 

The Anglo-Saxon looks forward, not without reason, to the days when warts 
will cease; but without war, he is involuntarily exterminating the Maori, the 
Australian, and the Red Indian, and he has within his borders the emancipated 


but ostracized Negro, the English Poor Law, and the Social Question; he 
may beat his swords into plowshares but in his hands the implements of 


industry prove even more effective and deadly weapons than the swords.” 


A most significant idea expressed by President Wilson was that the 
chief business of national diplomats is to organize the friendship of the 
world.8 When the international friendship of the world, scarce as it may. 
be, is organized into a world conscience and an organization with an 
effective program, then a recrudescence of violence may be prevented, and 
destructive efforts released for constructive work. 

The centering of attention on moral and social equivalents of organized 
warfare is in line with progress, for by so doing it will be possible to 
obtain any virtues that war begets, and yet escape the terrific cost. Physi- 
cal education can be expanded to provide all the valuable training which 


Clarence M. Case, “Instructive and Cultural Factors in Group Conflicts,” 
Amer. Jour. of Sociology, XXVIII: 1-20. 

* TH. A. Miller, “Patriotism and Internationalism,” Publications of the American 
Sociological Society, XVI: 135-144. 

1 Studies in Evolution and Eugenics (Harcourt, Brace: 1923), p. 83. 

* From address before the Chamber of Deputies in Rome, January 3, 1919. 


GROUP CONFLICT 321 


military life gives to selected groups. Courage may be fostered by 
making life less easy for those who are now idling in frivolous pleasure, 
and by making the game of life more worth while for those who are strug- 
gling forward against overwhelming social and economic odds. Education 
in socialized citizenship for everyone will create a new sense of public 
responsibility. The socialization of religion will stimulate an increased co- 
Operative spirit, and the widespread presentation of international and world 
needs and ideals will evoke a new world spirit that will eliminate military 


conflict and substitute for it a higher type, namely, socio-rational dis- 
cussion. 


RACIAL CONFLICTS 


Racial struggles are examples of group conflict. They grow out of race 
prejudice, which is an antagonistic attitude of members of one race toward 
those of another. It is usually a non-scientific pre-judgment. The pre- 
judgment will rest on hearsay, experience with a few non-typical members 
of the other race, or on sneering remarks, rather than on solid evidence. 

The social psychology of race prejudice reveals several causal elements. 
1. An elemental fear of the strange underlies race prejudice. This is 
probably the only inherited factor in the phenomenon; the other causes 
come from the social environment. The individual who would survive 
must regard the stranger with caution. In primitive days, the stranger 
was necessarily assumed to be an enemy until he proved himself otherwise. 
The stranger today without credentials at the cashier’s window is helpless, 
and the stranger at the front door of a private residence is viewed askance. 
The wanton practices of strangers have produced this elemental fear of the 
stranger. 

2. The strange tribe is an enemy tribe—until proved otherwise. Race 
preservation demands that each race maintain its own values and its own 
entity. “Consequently, each race has built up a set of beliefs which stress 
the virtues and overlook the vices of that race, and which exaggerate the 
weaknesses of other races. A race attaches “the idea of beauty to every- 
thing which characterizes their physical formation.” The members of each 
race come to believe that their race is the best in the world. 

The Englishman, the Italian, the German, the African Negro, the 
Eskimo, each declares that his race is the superior one of mankind. For 
example, the African Negro believes that brown and black are the most 
beautiful colors, and pities the Caucasian because of his pale, sickly hue. 
After living for a few months among the black races of Africa, white 


322 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





Caucasian travelers have admitted a sense of shame because of the pale 
skins of their race—so powerful has been the opposite influence among 
the blacks. The Negress enhances her beauty by painting the face with 
charcoal while the Caucasidn lady puts on a chalky white to increase her 
whiteness. The Negro considers his gods as black and his devils as white ; 
the Caucasian reverses the order. If there are thirty-five leading races in 
the world today, each fancying itself the best, then there are at least 
thirty-four self-deluded races. 

3. Ignorance causes race prejudice. “We must really know other races 
before we are entitled to a positive opinion as to the value of our own. 
Many leading ethnologists have concluded that all races are potentially 
similar, and that race differences are due to differences in physical and 
social environment. For example, a part of the Mongolian peoples moved 
to Japan, where they have undergone many changes. Others of the 
Mongolian peoples moved westward and finally through their descendants 
became established in Europe in Hungary, namely, the Magyars, where 
they are surrounded by a sea of Slavs. In the United States, the Japanese 
and the Magyars meet today as immigrants, but neither of these groups of 
Mongolian brethren recognizes the other. In coming from the opposite 
sides of the earth and in circling the globe, these two branches of the same 
race have undergone widely different experiences and encountered different 
environments. Consequently, they are unlike. 

False traditions and false education cause race prejudice. These can 
be corrected by a scientific study of the qualities of races in the light of 
their experiences. Upon examination, each race is found to be superior 
in some particular to other races. At their best and at their worst the 
members of all civilized races in our country are found to be pretty much 
alike. 

4. Separation or isolation increases race prejudice. Separation breeds 
misunderstanding, false estimates, and hence, prejudice. In the congested 
districts of any of our large cities, the immigrant frequently learns of the 
United States at its worst, and likewise, the American sees the foreign- 
born at his worst. In the coal mines, the illiterate immigrant first of all 
learns or is compelled to learn American profanity—these vivid impres- 
sions remain with him and, unhappily, constitute a part of his American- 
ization. 

An the Far East, Europeans do not associate with natives. In Yoko- 
hama, according to Melville E. Stone, on land which was donated to 
the foreign representatives for their consulates, the sign was placed: “No 
Japanese are permitted on these grounds,” In a small park on the “Bund” 


GROUP CONFLICT 23 


n Shanghai E. A. Ross reports the notice, “Dogs and natives are not 
lowed here.” 

While race preservation demands a certain degree of separation, yet race 
-xclusiveness naturally generates prejudice, out of which wars may come. 
[f there are no provisions for an increasing interchange of ideas and for 
pportunities for constructive contacts, friendship cannot spring up be- 
‘ween nations. 

5. Differences _in_race appearance foster prejudice. These variations 
re often superficial. We cannot judge the worth of a race by “the slant 
»f the eye, the color of the skin, or the shape of the shin bone.” We are 
still ignorant regarding real race distinctions, and hence need to guard 
igainst assuming that differences in appearances connote basic disparities. 
lowever, shrinking from those of strange appearance probably has an 
nstinctive basis. 

6. Differences _in_cultures magnify prejudices. If races have widely 
lifferent histories and cultures, their ethnocentrism causes each to justify 
ts own culture and to reject or even to sneer at the cultures of all the 
ther races. Cultural differences may even assume apparent psychological 
ontradictions, as in the conflicts between the Oriental and Occidental 
races. The opposing sets of psychological reactions are generally super- 
icial, but on account of them race prejudices multiply and prevent the 
‘aces from perceiving their common human nature.*® 

7. Competition engenders prejudice. The Chinese came to the United 
States upon invitation of private business interests. At first they were wel- 
somed, but when their labor competed with American labor, hatred of 
hem arose. Many people take a generous attitude toward the Negro, but 
f the Negro successfully competes for economic positions, then among the 
white persons who have lost, race hatred springs up. Both economic and 
social competition set off charges of latent prejudice. 

Regarding race prejudice it may be said in conclusion that its isolating 
ffects are matched only by its hatred effects. The race with the higher 
sultural standards desires to be isolated from the races with lower stand- 
rds because it despises them. The “higher’’ races seem unable to compete 
n birthrate with the less advanced races, and hence in order to protect their 
-ontrol of affairs in a democracy may follow one or both of two methods. 
They may resort to race prejudice, exclusion, and suppression ; or educate 
he “lower”’ races. 

Race prejudice easily becomes one of “the most hateful and harmful” 
1uman sentiments. It is arbitrary, vicious, and narrowing; it culminates 


* Clark Wissler, Man and Culture (Crowell, 1923), Ch. XIII. 


324 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


in lynchings, pogroms, and wars. One of America’s able scholars has in- 
dicted it incisively :”° 

It has incited and excused cannibalism, warfare and slavery. 

It has justified religious persecution and economic exploitation. 


It has fostered tyranny, cruelty and the merciless waste of human life. 
It has bred the spirit of caste; and it has done most to create the sweat-shop 


and the slum. 
It is the arch enemy of social peace throughout the world. 
-. . It is a sinister factor in world politics. 
Only through its removal shall we ever realize the vision of the dreamer—the 


brotherhood of man. 


RELIGIOUS CONFLICTS 


The world has long been cursed with religious conflicts. Highly special- 
ized religious leaders have become zealots. Their beliefs are the product 
of group or personal egoism, of dogmatizing, and of the craving to 
settle religious questions not only for their own religious group, but for 
everybody else as well. Religious beliefs, not always having scientific 
proof have fallen back upon the feelings for support. They quickly be- 
come prejudices, listening to no challenge or question. “Thus saith the 
Lord” harbors no reasoning attitude; everything is settled. Progressive 
thinkers rebel at this and a conflict is on. 

Religious conflicts have led to wars, persecutions, and the condemnation 
of numberless souls to perdition. Bitter hatreds develop between thos« 
socially and politically intertwined. As in all other types of grout 
conflict, a scientific attitude, a willingness to be reasonable, and the spirit 
of good will are the only antidotes for religious conflicts. Christianity, the 
religion of love par excellence, has produced notorious persecutions withir 
its own ranks. Until its members adjust their professions to the teaching: 
of its Founder, it cannot hope to become the religion of the whole world 
As long as the charge of “hypocrite” can with justice be hurled at it b: 
the “heathen” and the “pagan,” it cannot expect to win the world t 
itself. 


INDUSTRIAL CONFLICTS 


Industrial conflicts arise out of greed and the desire for recognition an 
power. The acquisition of economic power leads persons to build vas 
economic organizations which crush out the lives of the employees. Ecor 
omic power intoxicates, blinds, and makes its possessor frantic or schemin 


*G. E. Howard, Social Psychology (syllabus, Univ. of Nebraska, 1910), p. 5) 
and in Publications of the American Sociological Society, XII: 6-7. 


GROUP CONFLICT 325 


for more power. With it goes social power, and even political and religious 
power. Its momentum can scarcely be challenged. Its representatives fail 
to appreciate the attitudes of unfortunates, delude themselves into think- 
ing themselves “‘superior,” and so become the indirect cause of economic 
revolution. 

The proletariats, not having had the advantages of education, travel, wide 
administrative experience, develop strong feeling reactions, biases, and 
hatreds of their own. They are quick to attack the evils of capitalism and 
to accept “‘a way out.” As they develop thoughtful leaders, divisions occur 
over means of securing release from “wage slavery” and particularly over 
the ideal economic state to be sought. The followers, being untrained in 
scientific analysis follow here or there after any Moses who promises quick 
relief. Oppression is often so harsh that the oppressed is willing to take 
up with almost any panacea if it can be presented to him vigorously 
enough. Proletariat divisions and rash or even rabid struggles defeat 
them in conflict after conflict with their more calculating opponents. Dif- 
ferences in economic status produce the “classes” and lead to class wars. 


SECTIONAL CONFLICTS 


Geographic differences lead to sectional disputes. Mountain valley peo- 
ple, being without vision and stimulating social contacts, magnify slights 
and insults, while feuds smolder and blaze alternately. A warm climate 
and the cotton industry being possible in the Southern States, but not in 
the North where the factory system was adopted led to the struggle be- 
tween slavery and abolition, and to the Civil War. The struggle between 
the manufacturing East and the farmers in the Middle West led in 1922 
to the rise of an agricultural “bloc.” Sectionalism usually ends in political, 
economic, racial or other forms of group conflict. 


TACTICS OF CONFLICT?? 


A group in conflict resorts to methods which are pretty well standard- 
ized. (1) A primary method is for the group to get out its full strength. 
In the World War, rapid strides were made toward enlisting everybody, 
man, woman, and child, somewhere in the fighting machinery. All were 
asked first to do their bit, then their all. An evaluation of services was 
made and individuals shifted to positions of greatest fighting usefulness. 
(2) The group must inspire its own fighters to do their best (or their 


* Based on an analysis by E. A. Ross in an unpublished manuscript. 


326 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


SO 
worst against the “enemy”). Slogans are invented ; tales of horrible deeds 
by the “enemy” are concocted and enlarged upon. It becomes a matter of 
cutting your opponent’s throat before he cuts yours. (3) The group seeks 
the support of neutral groups, or at least tries to keep them from joining 
the opponents’ forces. False or real dangers are reported to them, diplo- 
matic skill is used, and other desperate attempts made to strengthen the 
home group by acquiring the support of allies. (4) On the directly offen- 
sive side, propaganda is started to divide the opponents, and to break up 
the enemy’s support. During the World War President Wilson delivered 
messages intended to divide Germany by winning popular support away 
from the autocratic rulers and generals. (5) All manner of means of 
deceiving the opposing group are devised. Before a football contest each 
team sends out “gloom” stories about hospital lists. Ambushes are manu- 
factured. Morality is extended to include lying and deception of every 
kind. Each campaign manager is sure his candidate will win by “100,000 
votes.” (6) The opposing group is intimidated. Terrible threats are 
hurled at them. “Big Berthas” have been a traditional means of sending 
shivers of fear through “enemy” people. These six factors may be 
summarized under two headings: building up home group morale, and 
tearing down “enemy” group morale. 

In a brief summary of group conflicts it may be said that in the long run 
they operate upon an ascending scale, namely, war, competition, discussion ; 
and give way to the rise of cooperation, alliance, and mutual aid. They 
arise out of social life, out of inherited culture and new programs, and 
run the gamut from brutal ruthlessness to that high type of corrective 
effort which is prompted by love. Conflicts tend downward toward brute 
levels, but may emerge in spiritualized contests for rendering service. In 
their lowest forms they are struggles to see who can deceive most, who can 
exploit most, who can shirk most; at their best they are contests to see 
who can serve his fellow men most. 


PRINCIPLES 


1. The most destructive type of intersocial stimulation is found in group 
conflicts, such as religious wars, racial conflicts, industrial disputes, 
political party strife, national wars. 

2. Military conflict arises out of such factors as ignorance, prejudice, 
selfishness, nationalism, and pugnaciousness. 

3. Primitive warfare gave a survival value to the fighting tribes. 

4. Civil and criminal codes have developed as a substitute for individual 


ZO. 


if. 


OW ANAWDH 


GROUP CONFLICT 327 


combat, but national groups have not yet produced an effective inter- 
national code of conduct. 


. War creates temporary virtues, such as physical training, outdoor life, 


an increase in courage, an enlarged morality, an increased national 
unity, virility, organization ; but these are often cancelled by adverse 
tendencies. 


. The evils of warfare include relieving the soldier of personal respon- 


sibility, brutalization, and hatreds, in addition to money costs, the 
suffering, and the deaths. 

War is the lowest method of settling disputes, whereas discussion is 
the highest. 

Race conflict and prejudice include an elemental fear of the strange, 
ignorance of the best qualities of competing races, mental separation 
and isolation, differences in physical appearance, differences in cul- 
tures, and the competitive spirit. 

Religious conflicts arise out of narrow, intolerant views which become 
integrated with strong feelings into dogmas. 

Industrial conflicts spring from the oppression and narrow-mindedness 
accompanying the desire for recognition and power when organized 
about the acquisition of private property. 

Conflicts, political, racial, industrial, religious all resort to similar tac- 
tics, namely, of building up home group morale and of tearing down 
“enemy” group morale. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. How is ignorance a cause of war? 
. Illustrate: Prejudice leads to war. 
. What is the relation of the desire for power to war? 
. Explain how patriotism is a causal element in war. 


What is the basic element in pugnaciousness ? 

Explain: For primitive tribes war has a survival value. 

Why have courts of law developed ¢ 

Why are national groups slow in developing a sense of international 
responsibility ? 

Why is war sometimes extolled as a social good? 

What would you say is the chief constructive value in war? 


. What do you believe is the worst evil of war? 
. Explain: Modern war is artificial rather than natural, 
. What is the relation of prejudice to war? 


328 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





i4. How is prejudice engendered? 
15. Why are there so many bitter conflicts between religious groups? 


PROBLEMS 


1. Why do rational peoples resort to war rather than use discussion in 


order to settle national disagreements ? 


2. Why has international law not reached the standing of civil and crim- 


inal law within the nation? 


3. Is national patriotism a scientific guide to national action under all 


circumstances ? 


4. Why do battles always take place between two armies rather than 


between four or five, each fighting against all the others? 


s. Is the man who has invented a deadly instrument of war a social 


benefactor ? 
6. Why has war not been outlawed before now? 


7. What can you as an ordinary individual do to outlaw war as a form of 


national conflicts? 
8. Can one eliminate prejudice entirely? 
g. Is prejudice ever a good thing? 
10. ‘““What psychic differences contribute to race antipathy ?” 


11. Illustrate “the cropping out of racial discrimination in the adminis- 


tration of justice.” 


12. What methods peculiar to themselves do religious groups use against 


each other ? 
13. What are the best values in group conflicts? 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Bird, C., “From Home to the Charge, a Psychological Study of the Sol- 


dier,” Amer. Jour. of Psychology, 28: 315-48. 


Case, Clarence M., “Instinctive and Cultural Factors in Group Conflicts,” 


Amer. Jour. of Sociology, XXVIII: 1-20. 


Ellis, G. W., “The Psychology of American Race Prejudice,” Jour. of 


Race Development, 5: 297-315. 


Kelsey, Carl, “War as a Crisis in Social Control,” Publications of the 


American Sociological Society, XII: 27-45. 
Lord, H. G., The Psychology of Courage (Luce, 1918), Ch. XI. 
McLaren, A. D. “National Hate,” Hibbert Jour., 15: 407-18. 


GROUP CONFLICT 329 


Morris, C., “War as a Factor in Civilization,’ Popular Science Monthly, 
XLVII: 823-34. 

Morse, J., “The Psychology of Prejudice,” Intern. Jour. of Ethics, XVII: 
490-500. 

Nicolai, G. F., The Biology of War (Century, 1918). 

Novicow, J., Les luttes entre societés humaines (Paris, 1904). 

Pugh, E., “The Cowardice of Warfare,” Fortnightly Rev., 99: 727-34. 

Thomas, W. I., “The Psychology of Race Prejudice,” Amer. Jour. of 
Sociology, 593-611: IX. 

Todd, A. J., Theories of Social Progress (Macmillan, 1918), Ch. XIX. 

Stratton, G. M., “The Docility of the Fighter,” Intern. Jour. of Ethics, 
26: 368-76, 

Williams, J. M., Principles of Social Psychology (Knopf, 1922). 


CHAPTER XXVIII 
GROUP MORALE 


ORALE is the quality and tone of intersocial stimulation. Although 

it is elusive, references to it are common, and its social value is un- 
questioned. In an individual sense, morale is revealed when a person in- 
quires of another: “How do you do, this morning?’ The phrase, “I 
hope you are well,’ related originally to physical tone but now includes 
social well-being. The person who is described as working “whole- 
heartedly,” or “half-heartedly,” is being analyzed in terms of morale. 
“How ready are you to act?” or sometimes, “How ready are you to wait?” 
are questions that probe morale. “How much fight is there in you?” or 
“How many times can you come back?” are inquiries that strike through 
to the heart of morale. Personal morale is chiefly a shifting organic 
tone depending on the nature of objective influences. 

Group morale is a product of the interaction of the organic and feeling 
tones of all group members. In group morale there is more than add- 
ing of personal morales; there is a new tension, a heightened determina-~ 
tion, and a vigor over and above the mere sum of the morales of individ- 
uals, 


EXAMPLES OF MORALE 


1. Morale is the underlying psychic tone of will assertion; it comes 
nearest to the surface in times of personal crisis and, in the case of 
the group, in times of conflict and warfare. During the World War 
the attention given to morale by the various nations grew rapidly as the 
war continued. Hindenburg was credited with the statement, “That side 
will lose whose nerve cracks first.” The French rallying cry, “They shall 
not pass,” reveals the heart of morale. “Morale will win the war,” became 
a universal slogan. Of the five essentials in war, namely, men, food, 
ammunition, ships, and morale, common agreement rated the last factor 
as the most important. 

Orders to go “over the top” are severe tests of morale. When the choice 
for an individual rests between probable death and loyalty to the group, 

*“What ‘condition’ is to the athlete’s body, morale is to the mind.” W. E. 
Hocking, “Human Nature, and its Remaking,” Atlantic Monthly, 122: 744. 

339 


GROUP MORALE 331 


a deciding factor is, “How loyal are the others going to be to the group?” 
Morale cannot be separated from group loyalty. If this loyalty has 
been worked up to a high pitch then morale will know no limits. 

In war, morale becomes “mass courage,’”’ and its development is a prob- 
lem in creating courageous attitudes, of putting individuals into a psychic 
grip or vice from which they cannot escape. The famous “goose step” 
produced “‘an excessive mechanical rigidity,’’ a helplessness in a mass move- 
ment, a high degree of susceptibility to “orders” and “direct suggestion,” 
an inordinate feeling control.? A regiment of goose steppers resembles a 
gigantic animal controlled objectively but possessed by tremendous feeling 
energies. At no point does a group take on more of the attributes of or- 
ganized uniformity, resembling a machine, than in the goose step. 

A measure of battle morale is the loss a body of soldiers will tolerate 
before yielding their position. Soldiers who will hold on till a third of 
them are dead or wounded are considered of excellent morale. In the 
statement that a Japanese company will stand until the last soldier has 
fallen, the highest claim possible has been made for battle morale. 

2. Another laboratory for studying morale is at a championship foot- 
ball contest, which of course represents antagonistic developments of 
college spwit. A “rally” is an organized attempt to augment morale, 
while underneath the rally there are mental attitudes which make the rally 
a “howling success” or cause it to fall flat. Effervescence is often mis- 
taken for deep tonal currents. The achievements of both persons and 
groups depend alike on physiological and intersocial tone. 

College spirit is rated very high when it gives a hundred per cent support 
to a losing athletic team. It arises out of parental loyalty, especially where 
father and grandfather have been “Harvard men.” It springs from the 
desire for recognition and the desire to achieve. It is boosted by college 
prestige among educational institutions and the public in general. It 
receives tremendous impetus from a current athletic victory. 

3. Other phases of morale are disclosed in the élan of a barn raising 
of “the olden days.” On such an occasion the quality of neighborhood 
morale is displayed.2 From miles, neighbors came and donated a day’s 
services to one of their number. The heavy timbers which constitute the 
main structure of a barn had been arranged on the ground beforehand. 
With all the neighbors lifting together at a given signal, the timbers were, 
one by one, put into place. Neighborhood morale was concentrated in 


~ ?*Harold Goddard, Morale (Doran, 1918), p. 32. 
_ *An elemental phase of “the morale of communal labor.” Goddard, Morale, 


D. 55. 





332 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





each “Heave together” which thrilled all who participated. There was a 
free luncheon, a great deal of visiting and hilarity, a general “good time,” 
but most important and intangible of all, a strong communal spirit and a 
desire to participate in what others are participating in. If neighborhood 
morale is low then no superficial inducements will suffice, but if it is high, 
then nothing can keep the neighbors away. This morale is built up by a 
considerable amount of exchange of labor, of benefits received, and 
assistance rendered. A democracy of economic and social status is 
essential. As soon as one neighbor begins “to put on airs,” jealousy rises 
and neighborhood morale is impaired. 

4. Patriotism, discussed at length in the preceding chapter, is an 
index of nattonal morale. Behind the response to a national call there is 
a state or level of loyalty. The writer has elsewhere called attention* to 
a Greek immigrant who, in commenting on the difficulty of generating 
patriotism in the United States during the World War referred to his 
countrymen as natural patriots and to us as patriots whose patriotism had 
to be “drummed up.” “You are obliged to have four minute men to gen- 
erate patriotism for you. If one of them doesn’t speak well, you leave, 
forgetting to show respect to the worthy cause which is being presented.” 

In this country there have been so many advantages into which we have 
been born and reared that we have never been appreciative, and hence our 
national morale is much less than our advantages call for. This morale is 
hampered by an excess individualism which construes group aims in terms 
of individual benefits. 

5. Religious fervor is another tangible expression of morale.6 Emo- 
tional development, a powerful faith, and moving of the “spirit” are ele- 
ments in this type of morale. When the members of a religious crowd 
become united and begin swaying back and forth, singing perhaps in a 
monotonous fashion, they may reach a high state of “religious” ecstasy. 
Morale in this instance is chiefly crowd emotion centering in religious 
patterns. It is spectacular, sincere, serious, but ephemeral and non- 
dependable as a social force. It needs an intelligent background, and 
sound judgment to give it balance. 


MAINTENANCE OF MORALE 


The creation of morale is not so difficult as its maintenance. Being 
partly the product of group feeling, it is easily aroused, but it also is like- 
“Essentials of Americanization (Univ. of Southern Calif. Press, 1923), p. 208. 


*For a fuller discussion of religious morale see G. Stanley Hall, Morale (Apple- 
ton, 1920), Ch. XX. | 


GROUP MORALE 333 


wise quickly dissipated. Common methods of morale maintenance are of 
a “feeling” character. 1. Music is perhaps the most frequent support 
of morale. Martial music keeps up the marching. Religious music is 
maintained as long as “converts” are likely “to come forward.” Music is 
resorted to in order to hold an auditorium audience steady when endan- 
gered by a fire. 

2. The use of yells and bombastic songs is well-known in morale 
maintenance. Athletic bleachers ring with cheers for both the fighting 
and the fallen “heroes,” and many an exhausted player has “gone through 
the line’ as a result of a bleacher demand for a touchdown. Uproarious 
cheers for dying gladiators in all types of arenas keep the remaining per- 
formers at their tasks. 

3. In a great crisis military leaders urge methods of taking the minds 
of the private soldiers from impending dangers. Although they are told 
enough of the immediate risk to prevent them from being stampeded 
against panic, their attention is shifted to more normal matters, and often 
an appeal is made to comic imagination.® Paid entertainers are secured to 
bring soldiers back to norms and to prevent them from worrying their 
strength away and making themselves unfit to fight on another occasion. 

4. The elimination of those who are likely to start panics, show the 
“white feather,” who are “yellow,” who are born “knockers,” is essential 
to morale. One shrill cry of “fire” can set a multitude fleeing for their 
lives; one satirical word, laugh, or look, one word of ridicule, even 
“poking fun,’ can destroy a morale of long standing. 

5. Censorship is used in many ways to protect morale. Every group 
holds certain things as being too sacred to be criticized. Certain per- 
sonages around which the group’s history has become crystallized are to 
be considered with respect. Children are taught to revere certain group 
symbols. Censorship is especially utilized with reference to the teaching 
of the young. Histories and other textbooks are prepared with especial 
care; group ideals are developed and group weaknesses are glided over 
skilfully. The description of group defeats is softened and condensed. 

In time of crisis censorship lines are drawn taut. When capitalism fears 
for its life “sovietism” is imagined on every hand. When the nation is 
in danger, unquestioned obedience even to the stupidest dictates of in- 
competent officials is insisted on in order to maintain the general morale 
and withhold possible encouragement to enemies. 

6. A peculiar form of building army morale is that of putting private 


, 


: *Hall, Morale, Ch. IV. 


| 


4 





334 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


soldiers in relays on the “burial squad.” In this way they develop a cal- 
lousness to the dangers of battle and the thought of death. 

7. Morale is often developed by a studied appeal to the spirit of sol- 
diership, whether individuals are working or fighting. They are asked to 
be good soldiers, to obey unquestioningly, to endure until the end, to fight 
a good fight. Religion has made especial use of this type of appeal. 
Pseudo-patriots often ask citizens to do their duty, to support the ticket ; 
and employers may drive their employees by stimulating the impulses of 
workmanship and of rivalry. 

8. One of the most advanced types of creating morale is by presenting 
facts and by encouraging people to reason things out.” President Wilson 
relied on giving “intellectual reasons,” but the people to whom he spoke 
were not prepared to appreciate the method. Morale may be built by vis- 
ualizing for the group the essential human values. By combining facts 
with reasoning and with the visualization of human values, one of the most 
dependable procedures has been utilized in appealing to cultivated people. 
The failure that results is not in the process but in the fact that most people 
are not yet trained to the point of responding. Until that day comes, 
emotional methods of arousing and multiplying morale will be utilized. 


COLLAPSE OF MORALE 


When morale collapses, its nature is revealed in unique ways. From 
sickness an individual “gives up” and goes to bed. He cancels all engage- 
ments and if he becomes very ill, he drops his work. He “loses interest” in 
everything, and as disease overcomes him his most cherished aims fade 
away. From this example, morale is seen to be a certain expectancy 
buoyed up by physical health. In this way, likewise, groups are maintained 
in part by the sheer strength and energy of their members. A group com- 
posed of physical weaklings has not the basic element of morale. What 
is bad for the health tone of persons is evidently not good for the morale 
of the social group. 

Defeat after defeat wears away the morale of a person. He rushes at a 
task with zest and skill. The first defeat may spur him on, and focalize 
his mental energies. After several defeats he grows more reflective; he 
examines his desire for achievement; and changes his tactics or gives up 
the unaccomplished task altogether. In this instance, morale consists in 
feeling impulses organized into a powerful desire. It is a crude force 


™See the discussion of “The Morale of Reason,” by H. Goddard in his Morale, 
pp. 87; also see Hall, Morale, Ch. VII. 


GROUP MORALE 338 


that does not take cognizance of all the factors involved. Reason is subor- 
dinated to desire. Group morale likewise consists in part of feeling tones, 
organized into powerful crowd emotion. The group rushes forward head- 
long, being characterized by a morale that is strong in feelings but weak 
in rational diagnosis and prognosis. 

Low morale reveals other elements. Cheating in examination affords a 
convenient laboratory for studying causes of morale. An examination 
as a test of a person’s ability is also a test of his morale. Ordinarily an 
examination is a test of one’s self respect. When the questions are unfair, 
when circumstances have unduly hindered one’s preparation, when “every- 
one else” is cheating, a person may feel that his answers will put him at a 
relative disadvantage, and he resorts to unfair methods. Whatever the 
provocation, his habitual standards of right and wrong break down. 
Morale is thus partly synonymous with habitual ethical standards. The 
morale of the group is seen to be closely related to the morals of the group, 
to the adherence of the individual members to generally recognized stan- 
dards of right. 

When we turn to the chronic cheater in examinations we again find 
habit in the center. The brazen cheater is dishonest by habit. A low 
personal morale is partly represented by low habitual responses to social 
stimuli. Groups, also, that have low morale, are composed of members 
having little respect for one another. Loyalty to group values is undevel- 
oped. No group principles have been evolved or no habits of loyalty to 
group ideals have been formed. 

The collapse of national morale discloses other factors. In the spring 
of 1917 the Czarist morale broke; in the fall of that year the Kerensky 
morale snapped, and a year later the German morale failed. Within a 
period of eighteen months these three national morales gave way, each 
spectacularly, but differently. In Russia the Czarist adherents had been 
killed in battle and constitutionalists and their sympathizers had gradually 
been put into control of the military forces. This new control suddenly and 
peacefully arrested the old régime and the constitutionalists came into 
‘control of the government.’ The morale of the Czar failed when his mili- 
tary power failed. Morale had been resting on force, physical force, 
military force. It was not a genuine morale but a fear inspired by a rod 
of iron wielded by prestige. 

The Kerensky morale was one of different type; genuine but weak. 
It had sound principles but did not maintain itself because it required an 
intelligent support that was lacking among a people sixty or seventy per 

®E. A. Ross, Russia in Upheaval (Century, 1919), Ch. VIII. 


336 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


sour MSTIN ORDA IC HL LA Gb SARIN MN SES DU NR ett os Se 
cent illiterate. The Kerensky government came into control at a time 
when an autocratically ruled people had become frantic, when the seeds 
of communism had been widely sown; it maintained itself until the exiled 
leaders of communism and*bolshevism returned from Siberia and foreign 
countries and, utilizing the soviets and appealing to the feelings of an 
aristocracy-hating and bourgeois-hating proletariat, brushed the Kerensky 
forces aside and swept into power. Popular feelings swung to the extreme, 
and the Kerensky morale, also weakened by some unwise decisions by its 
leaders, was caught between Czarism and bolshevism, and was smothered. 
Here was a morale that under other conditions might have flourished, for 
at heart it was composed of an intelligent loyalty to sound principles. 

The break of the German morale came when the German people began 
to perceive that all the strength of American resources and men were 
against them. The officers of the German armies, realizing this situation, 
made a determined drive to reach Paris, but failing of the grand objective, 
the loyalty to the Kaiser that had systematically been built up through the 
years began to crumble. With America against them, with their strength 
depleted by four years of fighting, with the promises of their military 
leaders being repeatedly unfulfilled, the German people began to listen to 
the socialist leaders who saw a glimmer of hope in accepting President 
Wilson’s Fourteen Points. This “swing” so weakened the support of the 
Kaiser and the military leaders that there was nothing to do but to make 
armistice terms, even though German armies were on foreign soil and not 
far from the enemy’s capital. Morale, again, is seen to be confidence in 
leaders, their purposes, promises, and achievements. 


BREAKING THE ENEMYS MORALE 


In the process of breaking the morale of an antagonistic group, addition. 
al light is thrown on the nature of morale. Nowhere in human history is 
there record of such attempts to undermine the opposing groups’ morale as 
in the World War. Germany created an elaborate program of breaking the 
Allies’ morale. The Zeppelin raids were designed to strike terror in the 
hearts of women and children and at the same time to worry the men if 
the trenches. The appeal to loyalty to the home folks was used to break 
loyalty to the national cause. Submarine warfare was originated not onl} 
to destroy merchandise, ships, and men, but to arouse fear in omnipresent 
and lurking dangers and thus shift attention from national loyalty. The 
“big Berthas” were invented not so much to destroy property and lives 
but to engender fear and worry and thus to weaken loyalty to an abstrae 


GROUP MORALE 337 


cause. One basic element in the introduction of poison gas was to dis- 
organize the enemy’s customary methods of fighting and thus to weaken 
his solidarity or his morale. In most of these instances morale is revealed 
as a feeling of social unity organized into habitual types of reaction. 
When these feeling-habits of the members of a group are snapped or dis- 
turbed, group morale crumbles. 

Morale we may conclude is the moral soundness of a group, and yet is 
not the same as the morals of a group; it is deeper and more underlying. 
It includes the confidence that the members of a group have in one another. 
It refers to the degree of cooperation which exists between the members. 
It is the group’s faith in itself.° Morale is a social soundness wherein the 
group members interact whole heartedly. 


PRINCIPLES 


1. Morale is the tone of group behavior; it may be measured by the 
loyalty of the members to group ideals. 

2. Battle courage, college spirit, the élan of a barn-raising “bee,” national 
patriotism, and religious fervor display different evidences of morale. 

3. It is easier to create morale than to maintain it, because of its strong 
feeling currents. 

4. The maintenance of morale is often accomplished through the use of 
music, song, an appeal to comic imagination, elimination of those 
likely to start panic, the exercise of censorship, the appeal to sol- 
diership and workmanship, appeals to reason. 

5. Morale may collapse, that is, seem to give way suddenly, due to the 
contraction or puncturing of inflated feeling elements. 

6. Morale is “moral” or social wholesomeness. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. Why does morale receive more attention in times of group crisis than 
of peace? 
. How is morale related to original social nature? 
. What are the main elements in college spirit? 
. What is the relation of loyalty to morale ? 
. How are morale and patriotism related? 
. What is the significance of the “goose-step” for morale? 
7. Why is reasoning not sufficient in creating morale? 
W. E. Hocking, “Morale,” Atlantic Monthly, 122: 728. 











338 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





8. Why does morale often “collapse” instead of diminishing slowly? 

g. What are the chief causes of the collapse of morale? 

10. What is “low morale’? 

11. How is an individual’s’ cheating in an examination affected by group 
morale? 

12. What are the differences in the collapse of the morale of the Czarist 
forces and of the Kerensky régime in 1917? 

13. How is morale related to morals? 


PROBLEMS 


1. What is the origin of the term, morale? 

2. In what ways is morale an important factor in intersocial stimula- 
tion? 

3. What is the best procedure in order to have a strong morale in times of 

group crisis? ; 

4. How would you go about measuring the morale of a group at a given 
time? 

5. Compare and contrast the morale of the United States today and that 
of the Roman Empire at the beginning of the Christian Era? 

6. Under what conditions is the morale of a group apt to break? 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Commons, J. R., Industrial Goodwill (McGraw-Hill, rgi1g). 

Gault, R. H., Social Psychology (Holt, 1923), Ch. II. 

Goddard, Harold C., Morale (Doran, 1918). 

Gulick, Luther H., Morals and Morale (Association Press, 1919). 
Hall, G. Stanley, Morale (Appleton, 1920). 

Hocking, W. E., Morale and its Enemies (Yale Univ. Press, 1918). 
“Morale,” Atlantsc Monthly, 122: 721-28. 

Lord, H. G., The Psychology of Courage (Luce, 1918). 

Ward, H. F., The New Social Order (Macmillan, 1919), Ch. VI. 





CHAPTER XXIX 
GROUP CONTROL 


Ca ae control their individual members in a thousand ways, most 
of which are indirect and unknown to the controlled. Now and then 
a person who runs amuck realizes the force of group control but imagines 
that the rest of the time he is self-controlled. Most group control func- 
tions so indirectly and surreptitiously that it influences deeply the nature 
of all intersocial stimulation. 

Group control is a process of regulating the behavior of tndividuals. Its 
definition discloses its weak and strong points. It may control (1) from 
“without,” (2) indirectly from “within,” or (3) directly from “within.” 
1. It may be entirely arbitrary, imperious, and dictatorial. The group 
through king, potentate or priest may “lay down the law” as in oriental 
royal and religious proclamations which conclude with the ominous words, 
“Hear, tremble and obey.” This is the master’s attitude toward the slave, 
the landlord’s attitude toward the tenant, the steel magnate’s attitude 
toward the illiterate “hunkie.” 

2. Control may use circumlocution. It may give its subject the 
impression that he is controlling himself. Paternalism gives gifts and 
renders unnumbered kindnesses, and the subjects respond gratefully, but 
in so doing unwittingly play the role of pawns. Employees are each sold 
a share of stock at discount, and hence are made to feel that the business 
is “their own,” whereas the majority of the stock remains in the hands of 
a few and the whole business is manipulated as before. The public school 
system sets “grades” and “contests” and pupils strive for “honors,” 

3. A person may be stimulated to “control’’ himself, that is, be given 
Opportunity and stimuli to “decide for himself.” Under these circum- 
stances persons draw extensively upon their original human nature. The 
appeal to self-respect, which is socially generated, brings out constructive 
responses from a person, and which if repeated with some regularity, be- 
come habitual. The group environments not only help to create “self 
respect,” but also furnish the stimuli for developing its habitual trend. 
The subtlety of environmental influence in determining the habits of per- 
sons, even those consciously built up, marks the extreme reaches of group 
control. The heart of all intersocial stimulation, therefore, is a phase of 
social control. 












339 


340 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


THE DIRECTION OF CONTROL 


Group control is a process of regulating personal behavior in the direc 
tion of real or supposed group welfare. This trend may be determined b 
one person or by all the group: the first situation is pure autocracy; an 
the second, pure democracy. In primitive groups or any groups wher 
illiteracy prevails, the trend of control is determined by a few persons calle 
leaders. ‘Wherever illiteracy exists, no matter if a titular democrac 
obtains, the control can be no other than autocratic, except in a face 
to-face group, for an illiterate people cannot think in large terms. The 
can “feel” to be sure, but their feelings are easily subject to outside cor 
trol. It is only in a very small group that pure democracy may develo 
among illiterate persons. 

Where a few control and the masses follow, group welfare is likely t 
be interpreted to the advantage of the few. In a primitive or illiterat 
group the few in authority assume a natural superiority and feel that th 
many exist for the benefit of the “elect.” In a literate group, such as 
corporation where the control is really in the hands of a few, the trend o 
group control is usually determined by what the few interpret to be thei 
own interests. 

When we turn to a large democratic state such as the United State: 
we find that the direction of group control is still in the hands of a mi 
nority. There are representatives elected presumably to “represent” all th 
people, but the problems of government have become so numerous an 
complex and the numbers of people so great that experts are required 
These experts are subject to control by manipulators and “special in 
terests.”” So the masses are hoodwinked and while possessing the righ 
of suffrage, may exercise it blindly or else become disgusted, lose interest 
and’refuse to vote. Thus, in a democracy control may remain in the hand: 
of a minority. Small groups, “blocs,” special interests tend to control. 

Before social control can operate in the line of true human welfare 
that is, of the welfare of all individuals to the fullest possible degree 
several things are necessary, namely, (1) a scientific knowledge of the law 
of societary life. In this field social psychology, sociology, and the othe: 
social sciences have made a start. Ultimately, they may be expected t 
furnish essential social facts and resultant principles so that an intelligen 
public opinion may be formed at any time on any question. 

(2) A scientific system for getting all the vital facts and relatec 
principles on any subject to all the people concerned quickly and reliably 


GROUP CONTROL 341 





is another minimum requirement for making certain that control will be 
socialized, To this end a reformation in newspaper service is called for. 
The radio holds unforeseen possibilities. Most important is the necessity 
of having the instruments of dissemination in the hands of scientifically 
trained and socialized persons. 

(3) On the basis of facts and principles widely disseminated, the people 
need to be trained in social diagnosis and prognosis. To the extent that 
they appreciate the meaning of social telesis and function therein con- 
structively control may be directed to the best human-welfare needs. 

Individual initiative continually conflicts with group standards. Although 

nearly all social controls have arisen from past group experiences, they 
are not always adequate guides for current individual action. Almost 
all the means for group regulation of persons have evolved spontaneously 
and slowly from human needs; and have been put in operation clumsily. 
Rarely have social controls been built to serve carefully ascertained 
personal welfare, but many of them possess more merit than their 
haphazard manner of development would imply. 

Every group presumably exercises control over its members in the 

direction of their self protection, and in order that personal energy may 
not be dissipated in socially disintegrating ways. It is an encouraging 
sign when a group does not rely absolutely upon automatic controls. It 
will be a hopeful day when groups undertake to diagnose themselves, 
and upon the basis of that diagnosis, to establish consciously and rationally 
sets of social restraints and encouragements. 2 









PROBLEMS OF CONTROL 


Social controls are commonly too rigid in certain particulars, too lax in 
"other ways, and too emotionally haphazard in nearly all phases. They may 
‘ be applied too strictly under certain conditions and too loosely under 
others. Since group controls are often applied objectively they coerce 
unjustly, occasionally maltreat, and make individuals seditious. Generally, 
a person is not properly stimulated to make his best contributions to his 
: social group. Consequently, from the standpoint of social welfare vital 
id Juestions must be faced. (1) In regard to any new situation, how much 
Ocial control shall a group exercise? (2) How shall this control be 
plied? (3) What shall be the nature of the controls? 

i problem is one of quantity of contro’, method of application, and 


( 


342 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


er  ———_—e—e 


most wholesome effects how long shall a given adult offender against 
society be imprisoned? Should all who have committed the same offence 
be punished equally? Shall controls be applied arbitrarily, belatedly, or 
shall they operate indirectly? Moreover, shall the teacher, for instance, 
use the same type of control in handling a mischievous boy bubbling over 
with energy as in dealing with a sneak? What kind of control shall a 
parent exercise over a “story”’-telling child who when cross-examined, 
appears to be giving free rein to his imagination and nothing more? 
Shall society use the same castigation for an obstreperous fanatic as for a 
delinquent corporation? 


TOO MUCH OR TOO LITTLE CONTROL 


It is natural that social control should in some caces accumulate a 
momentum that crushes individual initiative. Persons in control easily 
drift into assuming unwarranted authority. Their position and power 
make it possible for them to punish or intimidate critics. On the other 
hand, in the school where too little control is exercised, pupils make life 
miserable for the teachers, and develop destructive habits. In the nation 
too little control is illustrated by the disregard for the laws. } 

The doctrines of philosophical anarchism provide for too little social 
control. If original human nature were more social and less selfish, 
anarchism might work, but human nature being what it is requires the 
disciplinary experiences which come from group life, not only of small 
groups but also of large groups, even nations, but all these apparently are 
not sufficient to create an adequate world group control. 

Too little control hinders conservation of the larger social values. It 
gives selfishness an inordinate leeway. It gives schemers and exploiters. 
too much freedom. The shrewd politician may hoodwink the innocent 
voter; the more sophisticated business man may take advantage of the 
less experienced. 


CONTROL APPLIED TOO ABRUPTLY 


There are also the problems of how to exercise control. Granted that 
control is needed and that the requisite amount for a specific situation: 
has been determined, its success or failure may depend on how it is applied. 
In the home a child caught in some misdemeanor may De suddenly pounce 
on by an irate parent; in the neighborhood a “gang” when caught in a 
escapade may be promptly sent to jail. Adult offenders, especially if 


, 





GROUP CONTROL 343 


poor and without friends, feel the swift hand of the law. Instead of being 
led to perceive the error of their ways, they brood upon their plight, feeling 
a bitter sense of injustice; their recalcitrancy is increased and their group 
loyalty flattened out. 

Superficial responses may be produced by abrupt and rigid control. 
Individuals learn that the best way to meet control of this sort is to feign 
obedience. They “go through” the forms and become hypocrites. Unjust 
but powerful control always creates hypocrisy in those who have a sense 
of the fitness of things but are unable or afraid to strike back, or who 
are ruled by expediency. A great deal of seeming cooperation with those 
in authority and no small proportion of the complimentary things said to 
“officials” is deference not to persons but to “position” and to “control.” 


CONTROL APPLIED TOO GENTLY 


Control applied apologetically or half-heartedly or gently because of 
sympathetic reactions usually fails to command respect. This failure leads 
- to open flaunting of control. Control, to be effective, must be exercised 
without hesitation and flinching. Reasons may be given for it, and sorrow 
expressed at being obliged to apply it, but firmness, even a kindly firmness 
with the emphasis on the firmness may be displayed. The chief point is 
to make the subjects of control understand that they are being treated in 
the spirit of fair play. 

Very often parents will threaten vigorously, and then fail to administer 
punishment. This form of hypocritical gentleness is quickly taken 
advantage of. No control is better than threatened control that never 
materializes. 


REPRESSIVE CONTROL 


From another point of view group controls are of two general classes: 
those which inhibit, and those which inspire; those appealing to fear, and 
those stimulating hope; those employing force, and those using love— 
in other words, repressive and constructive. 

Any reference to repressive controls throws light on the nature of and 
need for constructive controls.t Historically, human groups have 
promoted social pressure at the expense of social inspiration. They 
have multiplied the “Thou shalt nots;’ they have featured repression. 


One of the chief merits of psychoanalysis has been its portrayal of the evils 
of repression and its emphasis on the need for constructive stimuli. 


344 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


En Tn ee ae eI See at a a aT Sa SST Sa SSIS SSS SRS S55 SOI tT 


The Hebrews emphasized negative rules for moral conduct, and the 
Puritans established negative controls over recreation. Nearly every- 
where society has used and advertised torture, capital punishment, dark 
and dismal dungeons, the guillotine, and the gallows, as deterrents. Par- 
ents have become notorious for overemphasizing “Don’ts,” while religion 
has pictured burning brimstone as the fate of sinners. | 

In the past a social group has emphasized “Don’t ;” occasionally, “Do.” 
It has left persons free until they near the border of traditional group 
beliefs and then it has spoken negatively and arbitrarily. Repressive con- 
trol is illustrated when a group hurls opprobrious names at individuals 
who veer away from group standards. Heretic, shyster, quitter, boner, 
knocker, tom-boy, sissy, fraidy-cat, renegade, traitor, bolshevik,—these 
terms act as negative social pressures. The immigrant often staggers 
under a heavy burden of negative controls, as shown by disheartening 
epithets, such as dago, hunkie, sheeny, chink, wop. The look of scorn cast 
by the débutante upon the hard-working daughter of the farm or factory 
is withering; the haughty “once over” which the millionaire’s chauffeur 
gives the humble owner of a Ford is ostracizing. Silk gloves sneer at 
“horny hands”; power tramples on weakness. 

It was once necessary for groups to give negative pressure precedence 
over constructive controls. When fang and claw ruled, groups had to 
supervise their members with rods of iron in order to protect the mem- 
bers against enemy groups. But as social knowledge and vision develop, 
positive controls may be substituted for negative ones, even though habit, 
both personal and social, persists in the maintenance of negative pressures 
long after the need for them has passed away. Careful scrutiny of a 
situation will show how wrong conduct may be produced by the applica- 
tion of negative controls. If a child acts badly, that action proves at least 
that he possesses energy which is seeking an outlet, and since that energy 
has been dammed up, it either breaks through the dam or goes over the 
banks at some weak place, causing harm to the individual himself and to 
others. ‘When an adult commits a crime, that act implies the presence of 
misdirected energy—energy that might have been expressed wholesomely 
if constructive stimuli had been functioning. When society shuts up a 
criminal in a dark, ill-ventilated jail, feeds him poorly, isolates him, his 
energy naturally turns into brooding, and automatically produces a sense 
of injustice. Although negative control will always be essential their 
blind and conventional usage creates more evil than good. An underlying 
law of social control is that the more nearly social justice is obtained by 
self control processes, the less will be the need for negative social pressures. 


GROUP CONTROL 345 


CONSTRUCTIVE CONTROL 


Constructive stimulation in itself makes repression unnecessary. 
Energies when put to constructive ends are not available for harmful 
activities. Routine but necessary tasks, when translated into “projects” 
full of foci of interest, are sought rather than shunned, and discipline 
is achieved through activity. Constructive group control may now be 
defined as a process of stimulating personal energy in socially wholesome 
ways.” 

Constructive control does not order this or that; it says neither “Do” 
nor “Don’t.” It focuses attention not merely on rewards for obedience 
but actually stimulates individuals to be themselves, to invent, to make 
over group values and standards. It encourages not obedience so much as 
initiative, in fact, as much initiative as is compatible with group unity. 
It is more than the principle of “attractive legislation” which L. F. Ward 
developed.* Ward would have the group offer such inducements as will 
in all cases make it advantageous for persons to perform acts beneficial to 
society. This standard implies social values as being already determined, 
whereas “constructive control’ as used here implies that persons are to be 
stimulated to make over even the group values. Ward’s principle appeals 
to personal gain; constructive control emphasizes social service without 
expectation of personal reward. 

Although constructive group control has been exercised by awarding 
honors, degrees, prizes, these have usually made an appeal only to the 
few. Society needs to institute procedures on a universal scale for stimu- 
lating everyone to achieve his best. Despite the strides made in this direc- 
tion by popular education, the masses are greatly hampered by lack of 
broad social vision and of creative opportunities. Although groups have 
developed a “hero” terminology as a means of stimulation, yet it is far less 
extensive than “traitor” and “heretic” nomenclatures. Although con- 
structive controls rely on hope rather than fear, yet hope is far less instant 
and powerful than fear in determining behavior, and hence, there is need 
for the development of techniques as auxiliaries to hope and for making 
hope stronger than fear. There is urgent demand, therefore, for all groups 
to give persistent and wholesale attention to the processes of personal 
- stimulation. 


* Thus it will be seen that constructive group control is one of the main techniques 
of socialization. 
* Applied Sociology (Ginn, 1906), p. 338. 


346 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


Constructive group control seeks to discover the underlying principles 
of both personal and social progress, of the development of personality 
through intersocial stimulation, and of social justice. In accordance with 
these principles it will work out tentative procedures and patterns of 
behavior. By educational processes it stimulates individuals, even from 
the youngest to the oldest, to adopt, and to improve upon these social 
behavior patterns. It will strive to change anti-group impulses into 
socialized habits,* to subordinate standards of individual pecuniary success 
and power to social welfare behavior, to translate egoistic desires into 
socialized attitudes. 

Constructive group control subordinates the interests of the part to those 
of the whole; of sections to national welfare; of nationalism to world 
community spirit; of ‘“denominationalism” to human service; of 
factionalism to community needs. It does not repress honest criticism. It 
formulates ideals, group ideals, world community ideals, and makes them 
so attractive that mankind is drawn toward them. 

The greatest enemy of constructive group control is group narrowness. 
No matter how fine a social spirit may be engendered within a group, for 
example, within a national group between citizens, that group may still 
hold an egoistic and domineering attitude toward other peoples. A high 
level of social education had been developed in Germany by 1914, but was 
dominated by hyper-nationalism. The world, however, will be safe only 
when a world-group procedure is rationally worked out—in which every 
nation group has a free voice “according to the intelligence and public 
spirit of its members,” but in which no one group should dominate. 

Constructive group control will provide all individuals with full oppor- 
tunities for creative effort,® for forming socialized habits, and for 
assuming social responsibility. It will stimulate initiative, invention, and 
leadership. If it cannot make routine tasks interesting, it will invent 
machines to perform them and make the operation of the machines skilled 
and interesting work. It will aim to direct human energies into problem- 
solving activities. It will draw human nature out rather than crush it; 
stimulate rather than smother. That manufacturing establishment which 
not only turns out honest shoes but enables all the employees to develop 
themselves, to have a voice in its management, and to become better and 


“See Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct (Holt, 1922), Parts One and Two, for 
an. analysis of the process of changing impulses into habits. 

*See the chapter on “The Principle of Balance,” Ch. LXII, by E. A. Ross in his 
Principles of Sociology (Century, 1920). 

*See Ward’s discussion of “Meliorism” (Psychic Factors of Civilization, Ginn, 
poe oe eA: and his treatment of “Opportunity” (Applied Sociology, Ginn, 
190 


GROUP CONTROL 347 


more useful men and women illustrates constructive control. That 
classroom in which the students, forming themselves into small groups, 
are stimulated to do cooperative scientific investigation and thus to develop 
new powers of mental inquiry demonstrates the validity of constructive 
control. That community which gives recognition to its members who 
sacrifice for the common good and who stimulate others, and condemns 
those who are shrewdest in their own behalf has caught the meaning of con- 
structive control. Constructive control will make life’s opportunities for 
the ordinary person so many and so socially helpful that all will feel the 
thrill of the abundant life of service, develop fully their original social 
nature, and find their most important activities in creating wholesome 
opportunities for other persons. 


PRINCIPLES 


1. Group control is the regulating of personal behavior and the condi- 
tions of intersocial stimulation by group action. 

2. Control may be so indirect as to allow persons to think that they are 
self-determining. 

3. Even when control is in the direction of group welfare, the goal is 
often falsely interpreted by power-holders in terms of their own 
narrow interests. 

4. Group control often conflicts with wholesome personal initiative. 

5. Control may be excessive or insufficient; it may be applied too 
abruptly or too gently. 

6. Control ranges from harsh and blind repression to wholesome stimula- 
tion and inspiration. 

7. The more nearly social justice is obtained by autonomous processes the 
less will be the need for repression. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


What is group control? 

When is control most effective? 

What is the purpose of control? 

. Why is it easily abused? 

What are the differences between control in a monarchy and in a 
democracy? 

6. Why is so much control unscientific? 

7. Why do both geniuses and criminals come into conflict with group 

controls? 
8. Why is exercising control a series of problems in calculus? 


PON 


348 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 

yA MIENE POUT THEN LIN IU Ne ek an ee 2 CO AN RIN RS 

9. How may control be exercised so as to secure respectful and coopera- 
tive responses? 

10. What are the strong points (a) of love and (b) of fear as a means 
of control. 


PROBLEMS 


_ In what way have you felt the effect of group coercion? 

Is more social control needed in a dense or in a sparse population? 

In a homogeneous or a heterogeneous population ? 

. In time of war or in time of peace? 

In a society stratified by classes or in one not so divided? 

Why is it sometimes necessary for teachers to use “polite coercion” in 
order to get students to work? 

. In what ways do some pupils politely coerce their teachers? 

In what ways in the United States is more control needed? 

In what ways is less control needed? 

. Define: The protective philosophy of a group. 

Is there reason to believe that in years to come more social control 
will be necessary in the United States? 

12. Why are infamous names applied to refractory members of a group? 

13. Why is persecution used as a method of control: 

14. How generally are individuals aware of being under group control? 

15. Would there be need for social control if every member of society 

were completely socialized? 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Blackmer and Gillin, Outlines of Sociology (Macmillan, 1915), Part IV. 

Case, Clarence M., Non-Violent Coercion (Century, 1923). 

Frazer, J. G., The Golden Bough (Macmillan, 1922), Chs. XIX-XXII. 

Giddings, F. H., Studies in the Theory of Human Society (Macmillan, 
1922), Ch. XII. 

Hayes, E. C., Introduction to the Study of Sociology (Appleton, 1915), 
Part IV. 

Park and Burgess, Introduction to the Sctence of Soctology (University 
of Chicago Press, 1921), Ch. XII. 

Ross, E. A., Social Control (Macmillan, 1901). 

Principles of Sociology (Century, 1920), Chs. XI, XXXIV, 
XXXV. 

Ward, L. F., Psychic Factors of Civilization (Ginn, 1906), Ch. XXXIV. 

Applied Sociology, (Ginn, 1906), Ch. IX. 


An 


ail 
HOO ON 


- 








CHAPTER XXX 
GROUP CONTROL AGENCIES 


ONTROL is exercised by a group over individuals only to the extent 

that individuals are able to respond. Since personality is always 
developed under the influence of social stimuli, it is partly a group control 
product. The common social spirit or responsiveness of human nature, 
gregariousness, sympathetic emotion, consciousness of kind, the desires 
for response and recognition, suggestibility and imitativeness, all of these 
participate in social self control. Without these, persons could not be 
group controlled, and moreover, there would be no groups to exercise 
control. Social control agencies, although brought into existence for a 
purpose, could not function were it not for basic human urges and 
mechanisms. 


OBJECTIVE AGENCIES 


Public opinion is one of the most common objective influences to which 
personality is subject. Laws are the most specific and tangible of the 
objective control agencies. Ceremony and ritual are the most rigid. Of 
all the agencies of control art is the most pleasing; it is also the subtlest, 
because of its indirect appeals. Personal beliefs would popularly be 
classed as subjective controls; they are such in the sense that they have 
become habit mechanisms, but not so, when their origin is considered. 
Personal ideals, likewise, are both subjective and objective but are chiefly 
to be viewed as the latter because they so much originate in group heritages 
and teachings. Social religion also is subjective on its habit side, but social 
and objective in many of its results. The education of the young is 
carried forward through teachers and other environmental forces. 


PUBLIC OPINION CONTROL 


Public opinion as a control agency is to be viewed in two ways. There 
is (1) the control by group opinion of individual conduct, and (2) the 
control of government by citizen opinion. Often these two phases of 
public opinion control are too closely related to be separated. Since 

349 


350 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


reir UE) eet hi 2d ELE aE aA LRU Be 
governments historically have so often represented a minority, citizen 
control of government is a significant development. 

Public opinion is perhap$ the most important social control. Since it 
has already been discussed * the attempt here will be simply to relate group 
opinion to social control. Without easy and quick means of spreading 
personal opinions, a public opinion cannot be formed ; and without its 
formation democracy cannot function. Hence, there is a definite interrela- 
tion between publicity and democracy. 

Before the use of the press and the telegraph, in particular, public con- 
trol was in the hands of self-constituted authorities. Whatever authority 
the “chiefs,” “lords,” kings wished to exercise was done by fiat, messen- 
gers carried the orders, a council was addressed and “influenced.” Be- 
hind the fiat and the “orders” was the executioner’s block, exile, or 
ostracism. “Groups” were confined to those characterized by physical 


presence where as occasion demanded the “potentate” appeared in royal. 


splendor or military prowess and spoke “authoritatively.” 

Then by a slow process occurred the invention of publicity agencies. 
The printing press existed for several centuries before it became a domi- 
nant social agent. The railroad and telegraph belatedly came into common 
use, and augmented “news” as a social factor. When publicity agents 
began to spread news and create opinions among the masses the struggle 
for the mastery of these control factors became bitter. It waxes strong 
today, so strong in fact, that the main fight in connection with public 
opinion as a social control agent rages around the control of the means of 
publicity. Some metropolitan newspapers give evidence of being “bought 
and kept,” of being “propagandist,” of representing property interests 
against human welfare interests, of using misrepresentation and insinua- 
tion in support of “party” interests. The chief hindrance today to the 
rise of democracy is often found in a press which is itself secretly con- 
trolled—by private interests. 

When the strength and subtlety of this “control” is considered, one 
marvels that democracy was ever able to make any advance at all. Although 
the press has been a powerful disseminating agency, it has at times 
disseminated more falsehood than truth and created false controls rather 
than true ones. The ease with which public opinion can be controlled is 
its chief weakness, for it is thereby exploited by designing persons. 


This ease of control of public opinion is found in the preponderance of : 
feeling elements in opinion itself. People in the by and large are governed | 


in their daily lives by “opinion” rather than by “facts.” That which 


+See Chapter XXV. 


GROUP CONTROL AGENCIES 351 


appeals to the feelings is quickly accepted, while facts must be sought dili- 
gently and when found are often “uninteresting,” “highbrow,” or technical. 
They are often offset by pertinent facts on the opposite side of the specific 
question, and thus require discrimination and reflection. Hence, before 
public opinion can become a scientific agent of social control, personal 
opinion itself must be made scientific and personal habits must be governed 
by scientific controls. Deliberation must rule hot-temper; people must 
seek the discussion group and be doubly wary of “crowds,” crowd emotion, 
and hysteria. 

Public opinion deeply influences socially reflected behavior. It is such 
a powerful control that only the strongest minded persons can stand out 
against it. It compels unpatriotic citizens to buy Liberty bonds, to respond 
cheerfully to special public service calls, to live better morally than their 
desires and lower feelings dictate, to meet regularly a minimum of group 
responsibilities. It functions without delay; it shouts praise or blame 
hastily after the individual acts. It 1s prompter than law. 

Public opinion is an inexpensive method of regulating individuals. It 
requires no courts, no lawyer’s fees; it works gratuitously. As in the case 
of law it is preventive, for people anticipate its onslaught and modify their 
conduct accordingly. It is more flexible than customs or law. It strikes 
ruthlessly into secret places and fearlessly ferrets out motives. When it 
becomes accurate in content and scientific in method it will make a better 
control agency. 

Opinion travels on the tongues of gossip and acquires greatly ex- 
aggerated forms under the influence of professional tale-bearers. It is not 
precise or codified. It muddles, distorts, and contradicts. It provokes 
people to violent rage and whimsical performances. 

Public opinion is faulty as a control because it rarely represents group 
unanimity. An offender can usually find some group members in whose 
opinion his acts are condoned, excused, or even praised and applauded. 
When responsibility is vague, as it is oftentimes in the case of corporate 
‘misconduct, public opinion wavers, loses its force, and allows the guilty 
parties to escape its lash; but again, when it approaches unanimity it dis- 
plays cyclonic social power. 


LEGAL CONTROL 


Law as an agency of social control is crystallized opinion. In a 
democracy it is crystallized public opinion or majority opinion. It is 
made, however, by representative bodies and hence becomes subject to 


. 


352 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


review in the light of past group principles and occasionally but too rarely 
in relation to current welfare needs. Since law is crytallized opinion it 
represents the errors of iudgment involved in public opinion as well as 
the merits. It is hardly scientific in its content, and rarely so in its method 
of creation. 

Any reference to a legislature or a congress at work in passing a law 
brings to mind sinister legislative influences, log-rolling, sectional trading 
of voting, buying of votes, secret “pulls,” until one stands amazed that cer- 
tain legislative practices can lay claim to being democratic. Legislators 
have not as a rule been trained in social welfare principles but rather 
individual success principles or in legal principles. When they meet 
they are at once subjected to every conceivable type of “influence,” with 
the less worthy influence operating in the most subtle, unseen ways. Law 
that is a perfect control agency comes from peoples’ experiences and 
allows freedom and justice to all. 

Another related problem arises from the fact that those to whom the 
enforcement of law is entrusted are often incompetent. The traditional 
policeman, for example, has been a sturdy man able to speak gruffly and 
to wield a club, but unversed in the technique of social control. Jail and 
prison officials have often been autocratic exponents of law enforcement ; 
they may have been notorious in permitting political graft to govern their 
activities. In the minor courts, especially, the magistrates have often been 
arbitrary. In coming into our minor courts large numbers of immigrants 
have complained bitterly of injustice.” 

The administration of law is often belated. By its nature law cannot be 
formulated and put into execution until time has elapsed for its advocates 
to determine the facts and deliberate upon them, to formulate rules, and 
secure majority action. In this interim, which may easily become extended 
when the facts are difficult to gather or where reactionism holds pro- 
gressive legislation back, law is entirely inadequate, and evil interests may 
easily take advantage of a whole group, even a nation. It is in this con- 
nection that the “criminaloid,” as portrayed by E. A. Ross, flourishes.® 

Legal administration easily becomes inflexible. In the first place its 
exponents received their academic education years before they became 
public agents. Their “ethics” is not based on current welfare needs but 
rather on past academic teachings. Law has stressed form and precedent 


: oi The Immigrant’s Day in Court by Kate Holladay Claghorn (Harper & Bros., 
1923). 
* Sin and Society (Houghton Mifflin, 1907). 


GROUP CONTROL AGENCIES 353 


until it has become dangerously subject to manipulation. Its eyes are 
directed backward rather than forward. Its very nature compels it to 
conserve, which naturally makes it conservative. It often acts with pro- 
voking’ slowness, allowing offenders to escape due punishment, and 
encouraging outraged citizens to condone lynching. 

Law looks to overt acts, and hence its judgments may become mis- 
placed, especially where the overt action is limited to a short space of 
time. Behavior is a scientific criterion, providing it can be considered in a 
sequence of acts. Where the time element is abbreviated, the real causes 
of misconduct are often hard to locate. 

Law, however, has many commendable features as’ an agent of social 
control. Since law is codified it is tangible, economical, and specific. It 
is highly preventive, because its provisions can be published succintly, far 
and wide, and with due notice regarding its methods of operation. It acts 
with reasonable certainty and force. Within general limits, given offences 
against society will be punished in specific ways, times, and places. 


CEREMONIAL CONTROL 


Primitive man, modern fraternal organizations, churches, governments 
all make a great deal of ceremony as acontrol. To a large degree it is a 
survival of autocracy. On it originally primitive leaders relied for pres- 
tige. Where a leader does not command respect or does not wield power 
delegated by the group members he must resort to force or fictitious 
prestige in order to maintain control. Ceremony as a tool of the autocratic 
leader puts the average individual into a more or less helpless situation. 
If he challenges the leader’s ability to control, he is at once accused of 
taking the group’s symbols in vain, and punished. Ceremony is the group 
visualized and magnified. Within this halo the autocratic leader is prone 
to frame himself. 

Ceremony becomes enshrined in mystery and for this reason creates 
respect and awe. Autocracy deliberately manufactures ceremonial 
mystery to protect itself from attack or even from being openly questioned. 
This mystery baffles the individual, making him even worshipful; it defies 
investigation and thus may hide a multitude of false controls, 

Ceremony is inflexible and thus no matter how wisely planned fails to 
meet all of a person’s needs. For the sake of the good, inadequate or 
repressive controls must also be accepted. Not being regularly subject to 
review and reform by legislative or judicial bodies ceremony easily becomes 


354 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


ee SS Ee 


far more rigid than law. It is imbedded in the customs of primary 
groups and thus reaches individuals while they are yet young and becomes 
engrained in habit formations. Hence, ceremony is doubly inflexible. 

Ceremony begets servility. It often consists in the propitiation of 
the strong by the weak until a slavish attitude becomes habitual. 
The guardians of ceremony tend to appropriate homage to them- 
selves. Ceremony custodians insist on being followed blindly and 
uncomplainingly. 

It is in ritual that ceremony crystallizes. Ritual often represents the 
best and most fundamental principles and ideals of the group. It 4s 
generally emphasized at the individual’s initiation to group membership, 
when the individual is made to feel helpless. On this occasion the 
group’s achievements and members are magnified in every reasonable way. 
A person, perhaps blindfolded, is led defenselessly into the presence of the 
“august” assembly. Moreover, he is in a state of gratitude for having 
been honored. The impressiveness, dignity, and conventions of the 
occasion require an appreciative acceptance of all the rules of the order 
including a solemn promise to obey the ritual injunctions. 

Ceremony carries all the force of convention and ordinarily of custom. 
Further, it is usually personified in certain dignitaries who are masters of 
the occasion. It is the specific symbol of all that the group has fought for, 
and it carries the group’s haloes of the past. Hence, the force of cere- 
mony is ordinarily irresistible when measured against the strength of a 
single individual. 


ART CONTROLS 


Art controls by gentle, indirect means. It sets patterns of behavior in 
such pleasing ways that onlookers find themselves unthinkingly responding. 
Its realm is the feelings, emotions, and sentiments. It is non-didactic, non- 
moralizing. It thrives in the pleasurable tones of life; it “polarizes the 
feelings.” 

Control by art is universal. Since all races and classes have similar 
feeling reactions, art knows no human limits. Millet’s interpretation of 
the peasant is understood the world around. “Madonna” patterns are 
recognized, appreciated, and responded to everywhere at a glance. Music 
touches a responsive chord in every soul and sends soldiers forward into 
battle. At its best it arouses other-worldly elements, energizes tired 
hearts and brains, and turns human attention from sordid to broadly 
spiritual goals. 


GROUP CONTROL AGENCIES 355 


Art controls through its appeal to order, rhythm, and symmetry, which 
operate universally. Human beings are susceptible to and partially con- 
trolled by “the influence of that which pervades and rules in the heavens 
and the earth, and in the mind and body.” It is structurally and 
functionally easy to respond to art patterns, and hence groups through 
designing representatives, by manipulating these patterns may control a 
whole people even harmfully. 

Controlling art patterns such as personal decoration, ornamentation, 
architecture, painting, and sculpture, are static; in the dance, song, poetry, 
music, and public speech the pattern forms possess a moving element. 
The music of three centuries ago which sways multitudes today effectively 
molds current conduct. Through the feelings music melts individuals and 
re-directs their energies. In hymns and songs people live over the joys, 
sorrows, and anticipations of past generations. Community singing and 
pageantry socialize individuals. 

Art as a control agency needs censorship for special reasons. Its basic 
rhythmic appeals are easily sensualized. Its use of indirect suggestion is 
all-powerful. Its moral passivity permits it to fall helplessly into the 
hands of designing individuals. 


CONTROL THROUGH BELIEFS AND IDEALS 


Many personal beliefs are instruments in social control. From his 
family, play, school, and church life, a person acquires beliefs which 
fundamentally affect his conduct. He prides himself upon making his 
own decisions and upon being self made, whereas the various groups of 
which he has been a member have in reality made many of his decisions 
for him by their teachings and influence. He is not self made to the extent 
that he believes and boasts. As noted in an earlier chapter, he is parent- 
made, school-made, playground-made, church-made to a degree which he 
little suspects or would cheerfully admit. 

Religious beliefs according to which the individual lives continually 
under the direction of an all-powerful Being whose eye “‘seeth in secret,” 
function effectually. Both law and public opinion can be evaded, but not 
a Judge who is all-seeing, all-knowing, and all-powerful. Religious as well 
as other ideals are often implanted in childhood when critical ability is 
undeveloped; hence they constitute effective controls. 

Social religion is especially helpful in setting helpful pattern ideas of 


control. A widespread belief in the brotherhood of man softens 


“See the excellent chapters on this subject by E. A. Ross in his Social Control. 


350 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


ceed POA EDL NN 11 011 ApS ARUW NS DRSP aR DDO Py SELES SR TNs 


antagonistic responses toward societary members and fosters desires for 
justice. Ancestor worship carries forward the ideals of the past, 
Government, inclusive of.Jegal machinery, is a mighty engine of control. 
National governments are especially omnipotent. In the United States 
under war conditions the government provided for the compulsory ser- 
vice of all men between certain ages, dealt vigorously with open or secret 
disloyalty, censored the news, promoted world-safe-for-democracy pro- 
paganda, and directed the course of public opinion. In Germany in peace 
times the government, through its control of education, brought up a 
generation according to its pre-conceived aristocratic, military ideas. It is 
clear that to preserve the liberties of individuals, public educational institu- 
tions must be supplemented by equally powerful private institutions with 
freedom to criticize constructively the state itself and prevailing standards 
of control. It is not so important to build a strong state control of citizens 
as it is to rear persons filled with a sense of responsibility which puts 
public interests ahead of private advantage. 


EDUCATIONAL CONTROL 


Education represents a sheaf of controls. Education through the schools, 
the press, and the platform, as well as through the other main social 
institutions is the parent of all social controls. Unconscious and con- 
scious adoption of suggested ideas, beliefs, and feelings regulates the 
individual’s conduct. Through education the group can train its young in 
almost any direction that it wills. Consequently, group education must not 
be determined by a small coterie of narrow-minded individuals but by 
representatives of the entire group personnel. 

The primary groups are the basic educational agencies of control. 
Through the contacts and stimuli in the family and the play group par- 
ticularly, individuals are controlled in ways that are educationally more 
subtle and effective than in a semi-military and compulsory educational 
system as such. The highest type of educational control is that which 
trains individuals unthinkingly to act in line with the welfare of others. 


PRINCIPLES 


1. Social control is the influence that the group exercises over its 
members. 

2. Control is possible because of the inherited response-mechanisms of 
individuals. | 


0 ON ANAW DN 


Nw 


GROUP CONTROL AGENCIES 357 


. Public opinion is a powerful agency of control that is universal, 


immediate, and often ruthless. 


. Law is a system of codified controls supported specifically by group 


force. 


. Ceremony and ritual are controls from the past. 
. Art exercises wide influence by its natural appeals to rhythm, color, and 


symmetry. 


. Personal ideals are rarely original; they are socially engendered and 


constitute subtle forms of social control. 


. To the extent that social religion holds back selfishness and multiplies 


good will, it is an important control agency. 


. Education is inclusive of all social controls. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. Distinguish between group control that acts subjectively and that which 


operates objectively. 


. In what ways is public opinion an excellent method of control? 
. On what occasions is public opinion most apt to function? 


What are the chief advantages of law as an agent of control? 


. What is the strongest point in custom as a means of control? 
. Why is ritual an effective control? 


Why does art as a form of control need censorship? 
Why are personal beliefs often largely social controls? 


. Why is education the supreme form of control? 


PROBLEMS 


. Which is more effective in forming public opinion, the cartoon or the 


editorial ? 


. Is the sardonic newspaper cartoon more effective in molding public 


opinion than the good-natured cartoon? 


. Why are laws in our democracy lightly broken? 
. Which binds “its members more closely to custom,” a religious institu- 


tion or a business organization? 


. Explain: “The tyranny of the majority.” 
. Distinguish between “the tyranny of the majority” and “the fatalism 


of the multitude.” 


_ Is it true that members of a small minority, no matter how meritorious 


its side of a question may be, are always called “traitors” or other 
wounding names by an overwhelming majority? 


358 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


Ne i te eh Ea oe a a 


8. Explain: The state is more rapacious than it allows its citizens to be. 
g. Who are the professionals whose business it is to maintain the social 
order? . 
10. Explain: “We who would like to love our neighbors as ourselves are 
maintaining systems of social control that actually prevent us from, 
doing so.” 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Dewey, John, Democracy and Education (Macmillan, 1916), Chs. II, ITI, 
A ANTE 

Foulke, W. D., “Public Opinion,” National Municipal Review, IIL: 245-55. 

Hadley, A. T., “The Organization of Public Opinion,” North American 
Review, 201: 191-96. | 

Hirn, Yrjo, The Origins of Art (Macmillan, 1900), Chs. XVITI-XX. 

Jenks, J. W., “The Guidance of Public Opinion,” Amer. Jour. of Soci- 
ology, 1: 158-69. 

Ross, E. A., Social Control (Macmillan, 1901). 

Shepard, W. J., “Public Opinion,” Amer. Jour. of Sociology, XV : 32-60. 

Social Control, Publications of the American Sociological Society, Vol. 
XII. 

Todd, A. J., Theories of Social Progress (Macmillan, 1918), Chs. XXIV, 
XXV, XXXII. 

Yarrows, V. S., “The Press and Public Opinion,” Amer. Jour. of Soct- 
ology, V : 372-82. 


CHAPTER XXXI 
GROUP. CONTROL PRGOUGTS, 


ACH of the control agencies operating in direct and indirect ways 
and appealing to the feelings, desires, and attitudes, produces a mul- 
titude of behavior responses. Behavior is the most important product of 
social control. It ranges from stagnant behavior and anti-social behavior 
to preeminently social behavior. 


STAGNANT BEHAVIOR 


Control applied too heavily crushes human initiative, mental ambition, 
and social change. If those in control use the bullet and guillotine on all 
who dissent from the established order, and are able to keep up the 
policy for two or three generations, they become almost absolute, and 
initiative not in harmony with the enthroned special privilege dies. ‘The 
Kechuas were the sustainers of the Inca civilization, and it is suggested 
that their long subjection to the patriarchal régime of the Incas had the 
effect of taking the iron out of their blood. The strong-willed old variant 
individuals sooner or later bumped up against the established order and 
came to grief, while the pliant and docile survived. Certain it is that the 
will of the Kechua is strong only in a passive way.”+ A striking illustra- 
tion of this point is given by Reuter in referring to population control 
in Spain: ? 


She undertook, more systematically than most of the West European nations, 
to control the type of her population. The Moors, her industrious and pros- 
perous but religiously and racially heterodox citizens, she expelled in the 
interests of racial and religious unity. The undesigned result was the de- 
struction of the possibility of industrial development. In the interests of 
religion and the redistribution of financial power, she expelled the Jews with 
results disastrous to her business and commercial prosperity, and finally, and 
again in the interests of a decadent religious orthodoxy, she destroyed her 
intellectuals and thereby insured herself a long period of religious orthodoxy 


*E. A. Ross, South of Panama (Century, 1918), p. 247. 
7E. B. Reuter, Population Problems (Lippincott, 1923), p. 10, 


359 


360 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


Ian DRE Ld Snr nn aren 


and intellectual stagnation. Not all official efforts at population control have 
been as systematically stupid as the efforts of the Spanish, but few have been 
effective ia the way intended.’ 


NON-SOCIAL BEHAVIOR 


One way of appreciating the effect of group control is to observe situ- 
ations where it has not operated or only to a small degree. The product 
in these cases is non-social behavior. The infant seems to be self-centered 
in his overt behavior, being contented if fed and bodily comfortable, and 
crying loudly when anything goes wrong with himself. He is not against 
other individuals, neither is he for them; he is simply for himself, re- 
sponding to social and group stimuli to be sure, but in the light of his 
own organic demands. He is of the group but not consciously in it. 

When his parents attempt to hush his wailing or refuse to pick him up 


and rock him when he squalls, social control has begun to operate and its 


products become evident. Irrespective of who may be disturbed, of what 
time of the night it may be, or how tired and ill the parents are, or how 
parents and others may try to hush him up, he cries loud and hard. His 
failure to respond to an elementary form of social control at once brings 
upon his innocent head the appellations of “naughty child,” “little imp,” 
and “young autocrat,’—if not from the parents, then from disturbed 
neighbors. In the meantime there is no evidence that the infant has delib- 
erately set himself “against society” or is otherwise guilty of morally bad 
conduct. 

Mental defectives illustrate ‘“non-social” behavior. They are of the 
group but not responsible for it. They are individuals incapable of 
developing a normal social responsibility, and hence no matter what the 
pressure upon them may be they do not show signs of responding fully 
to social stimuli. The product of social control in their cases is never 
more than a vague sense of responsibility. Their social nature develops 
under stimulation only to a limited degree. Perhaps it is phlegmatic 
and could never be aroused to do harmful things to others; on the other 
hand, it may be highly impulsive and in an unexpected moment of rage 
commit serious offences. 


In small children and the mentally defective, social control cannot 


*Lecky supports Reuter’s contention, for he says: “The ruin of Spain may be- 
traced chiefly to the expulsion or extirpation of her Moorish, Jewish, and heretical” 


subjects.” (History of England in the Eighteenth Century I: 186.) 


*See Cooley’s Human Nature and the Social Order (Scribners, 1923), pp. 43 ff, 


for an explanation of the uses and abuses of the term “social.’ 


ee ee 


GROUP CONTROL PRODUCTS 361 


function normally and hence their behavior fails to show signs of social 
responsibility. There may be present unawakened social responses or 
the sense of respensibility may be untouched. At any rate social control 
has not yet begun to operate successfully. 


PSEUDO-SOCIAL BEHAVIOR 


Control may produce a falsely social hehavior. The small child often 
learns to “work” his parents. The son or daughter may discover the 
parents’ weaknesses and cater to these in order to secure coveted favors. 
The pupil seeks to please the teacher, not always for wholesome reasons, 
but sometimes in order to secure grades. The salesman looks for his pros- 
pective customer’s whims and flatters the “prospect.” 

Beggars may feign a social spirit. Where charity grants are regularly 
made, a percentage of applicants will not be truly in need, but will 
claim themselves worthy of aid. Street mendicants easily prey upon the 
sympathies of passers-by, and thus secure large sums in gratuities an- 
nually. By this method, a mendicant may not only support himself but 
also two or three able-bodied relatives or friends. In the meantime all 
live without learning a useful trade or otherwise becoming social 
producers. 

Politicians quickly learn how to stimulate the feelings of the voters. 
Slogans that appeal to basic emotions are invented and secure votes. The 
politician tells the people how he serves them; for example, the slogan 
of Andy Gump: “too per cent for the people, wears no man’s collar.” 
Church pews are rented and occupied by persons desiring “trade,” to work 
up a “practice,” or otherwise to secure the support of church people. 

Feigned “social behavior” is one of the common by-products of group 
control. It cannot be prevented and yet it is most troublesome, leading 
to all types of hypocrisy and exploitation of others. There is only one 
sure way of determining whether behavior is social or only sham, and 
that is to judge it over a long period of time and to observe how often 
it has been performed at personal cost. 

Paternalism produces a certain amount of pseudo-social conduct. 
Under paternalism the tendency is to train people to look to others for 
help which by exertion and persistence they might render themselves. A 
whole nation under either monarchy or socialism may develop a falsely 
social behavior. In one case they are abruptly forced to look to their 
“owner” for such privileges as the monarch may see fit to dole out; in 
the other instance, a somewhat similar result is obtained by educational 


362 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





processes. Under state socialism there is danger that the people learn to 
lean on the state whenever they get into trouble and that they even look 
to the state to support them not only when they are accidentally out of 
work but when they refuse to work. State socialism may fail to encourage 
thrift and thus have to support a considerable portion of the people. 
Another mischievous element is the fact that state-given aid is easily 
accepted and if repeated becomes sought after as a matter of course. 

It thus becomes clear that only under that form of democracy which 
encourages thrift and self reliance can a state be protected against the 
wholesale production of pseudo-social behavior. Democracy, of course, 
must see to it, that its economic and social order embodies justice and that 
producers of social values are paid according to some rational plan and 
able-bodied, non-producing adults given special treatment. England’s 
experience with her Poor Law reveals the problem of helping the weak 


without creating pseudo-social attitudes. To help and not produce false. 


conduct is one of the most difficult phases of social control. 

The principle of anticipation® operates strongly. When it becomes 
known that certain philanthropic persons will aid individuals under specific 
conditions, there is a tendency for some persons to qualify in order to 
procure aid. Social control that would be sympathetic and helpful and 
yet not produce pseudo-social conduct must prescribe rules whose observ- 
ance will lead to true social behavior. 


ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOR 


The assumption is that all persons are capable of both social and anti- 
social conduct. The latter becomes conspicuous and predominant in those 
persons where there has been undue repression of normal impulses and 
where social control has been synonymous with unfair coercion. The 
born-criminal theory (of Lombroso) is not acceptable, although there 
are doubtless moral imbeciles and others incapable of making moral 
judgments and hence not morally responsible. 

Every normal child finds himself repeatedly in conflict with group con- 


trol. He revolts time and again, but the way in which he is “handled” 


when he revolts is all-important. If he feels that he is being abused, - 


treated unjustly, and not given a fair hearing, his anti-social impulses soon 
become organized into dangerous habits. On the other hand, if the error 
of his ways is carefully explained and punishment is administered in 


SE. A. Ross, Principles of Sociology (Century, 1920), Ch. LVII. 


? 
,- 
/ 


a ier er) ey a 


GROUP CONTROL PRODUCTS 363 


the spirit of justice, not of anger or revenge, he is apt sooner or later 
to admit its wisdom and settle into social reactions. 

Anti-social behavior sometimes roots in pure counter suggestion. A 
youth with an exceptionally strong individuality tends to react against 
any and every form of onerous social restraint. In such instances social 
control, unless it be exercised with a high degree of sympathetic under- 
standing, is apt to produce recalcitrancy and even violent criminal 
attitudes. 

A flabbiness or the absence of control is often followed by anti-social 
conduct. Parents fail to discipline sufficiently or properly; they may 
allow children to have their own way, with the result that the children 
never learn a wholesome respect for law and order and justice. They 
remain “spoiled children” of society. 

Adequate social control is in essence a process of developing a sense 
of social responsibility in the lives of individuals. An infant has no 
social responsibility. A delinquent feels social responsibility toward a 
few selected individuals. Anti-social behavior is destructive conduct in 
relation to persons and institutions toward which one feels spite. Misun- 
derstanding and lack of vision and responsibility often produce anti-social 
behavior. Controls which do not prevent misunderstanding, which do 
not give vision and arouse responsibility are inadequate and their product 
is anti-social behavior. 


SOCIAL BEHAVIOR 


Group control normally should produce social behavior. Individuals 
cannot grow up in groups without learning to make many responses to 
group stimuli and without these becoming habitual and a vital phase 
of acquired human nature. Individuals who respond to group stimuli 
have better chances of survival than others, and hence a social nature 
is a natural product. Everyone, therefore, is social toward certain indi- 
viduals called friends but in varying degrees. An atmosphere of good 
will and confidence produces social behavior, and expands the ordinary 
person’s social reactions so that they become more and more inclusive 
and socially helpful. 


PRE-EMINENTLY SOCIAL BEHAVIOR 


Certain persons are aroused by social stimuli to give their lives un- 
stintingly to the welfare of other persons. By a single stimulus they 
may lay down their lives, or through a series of social situations they 


364 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





may repeatedly sacrifice themselves without so much as once raising 
the question of personal gain. These somewhat isolated illustrations 
of preéminently social behavior do not relate wholly to a peculiar in- 
heritance but include specially strong social stimuli. They demonstrate 
what might be accomplished by a scientific social control; they prove 
that it is possible to shift the axis of behavior towards, if not into, the 
field of preéminently social behavior. The nearest approximation of 
this goal is found in the lives of self-sacrificing mothers and fathers 
and of those who give up their lives for the cause of freedom and justice. 
There is much evidence that a preéminently social control is possible. This 
is the task of education, but the technique remains to be worked out. 


STANDARDS OF BEHAVIOR 


Group control produces standards of behavior. Every group favors. 
certain behavior activities and penalizes other types of conduct. By these 
favoring and frowning processes, certain activities become crystallized 
into accepted codes or standards, and other activities become tabooed 
standards. The social determination of standards is usually effected 
in a hit-and-miss, unscientific fashion. A few strong individuals, advo- 
cates of certain interests, lead the way in creating opinion and crystallizing 
judgments—and the result is a standard by which the conduct of a 
whole group is measured. The force of law and the police power are 
brought to the support of these adventitiously derived standards. If a 
standard is codified in the form of a law, then it becomes supported by 
all the resources of the group. It cannot easily be challenged or changed. 
If the standard achieves recognition to the extent of being put into the 
decalogue or the “constitution” of the group, then it becomes a super- 
standard, a standard by which other standards are judged; it achieves a 
position at the very heart of social control. 

A standard is a group-derived and enforced measure of personal be- 
havior. It is a type of conduct which is adjudged advantageous for the 
members of the group. ‘Freedom of speech” is a standard derived from 
democratic opinion for the purpose of protecting group members from - 
autocratic and secret control by a self selected minority who wish to 
protect their positions of special privilege. Standards are types of be- 
havior that all normal group members may follow—for their individual 
good and for the group welfare alike. Democratic standards seem to 
be the most advanced and useful products of group control. 


ne ee 


GROUP CONTROL PRODUCTS 365 


INSTITUTIONS 


Among the more objective and concrete products of social control are 
institutions. Groups wish to protect the parental impulses, and marriage 
as an institution is created and supported. Persons manufacture articles 
of worth, save objects of personal interest, accumulate material things, 
and the group recognizing the merit in this procedure creates the insti- 
tution of private property. Groups recognizing the need of law and 
order so that individuals may not continually get in each other’s way, 
and even destroy one another, develop institutions of government, which 
become differentiated into executive, judicial, and legislative bodies. 

By group action institutions are modified; corporations are not only 
created but made over and even destroyed. Every institution of society 
is continually undergoing forceful manipulation by group control. Now 
and then when an institution gets in the way of group opinion it is sud- 
dently overthrown. Even a government or an economic system may 
become so repressive that revolution will break out and when the privi- 
leged few “at the top” grow weak enough or make enough vital mistakes, 
the revolution succeeds and new institutions are set up. 

Since institutions are conserving in character they easily become the 
chief agents of social control. They are used as “big sticks.” Because 
of their tangible, formal character, they acquire social prestige and 
become symbolic of the group itself and hence agencies as well as products 
of control. It is here that a vicious circle often occurs and that institutions 
become more dangerous than helpful. 

Institutions are either private or public. A private institution can func- 
tion as an originator and experimenter. Its membership remains volun- 
tary. It is free to produce new activities and ideas; it may openly criticize 
public agencies. On the other hand, public institutions are more distinctly 
products of the majority opinion rather than of a minority. They often 
make membership compulsory and carry forward activities that are widely 
recognized as elevating the common welfare. They are most successful 
where activities can be standardized, and where this standardization 
creates socialized persons. 


A SCIENTIFIC SOCIAL CONTROL 


In summary, the major traits of a scientific social control may now be 
stated. (1) In the first place a scientific control will be based on as 


366 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


accurate knowledge as can be obtained concerning the nature of human 
association, of intersocial stimulation, and of the laws of personal, group, 
and social growth. (2) This knowledge will be disseminated to all the 
constituents, together with full explanations of the need of wisely planned 
controls, and of the limits beyond which personal liberty cannot go with- 
out destroying that degree of social unity which is essential to progress. 

(3) A scientific social control will curb selfishness, but do far more, 
namely, stimulate in every new generation the development of habits of re- 
sponding naturally on behalf of social welfare first and individual welfare 
second. (4) It will encourage spontaneity of action along socially con- 
structive lines, further creative living without permitting pig-trough li- 
centiousness, and attempt to make permanent a democratic responsiveness 
from all persons all the time. (5) It will secure efficiency and stand- 
ardization but leave plenty of room for individual variation and _ ini- 
tiative. It will shun that “appalling uniformity” with which the French 
national educational system is credited and which is implied in the face- 
tious statement that “the minister of public instruction can look at his 
watch and tell what verb is being conjugated at that time in all the 
schools of France.” (6) It will maintain simplicity by evaluating indi- 
viduals according to character and behavior rather than “looks” and 
adornment, and will frown on class or caste systems. (7) It will econo- 
mize energy expenditure, although at the same time it will encourage 
enough experimentation to guarantee the widest possible range of personal 
and social growth. (8) It will maintain a wholesome balance between 
group organization and personal initiative. (9) It will be applied di- 
rectly enough to be perceived and respected, and indirectly enough to give 
persons a sense of responsibility. (10) It wili maintain a balance be- 
tween socialization and individualization, emphasizing habits of socialized 
achievement. 


PRINCIPLES 


I. Behavior is the most common and important product of social control. 

2. Where social control has not begun to operate, there is non-social 
behavior, as in the case of new-born infants. 

3. A person may take advantage of social controls by feigning observ- 
ance in order to secure social favors—the resultant is a form of 
pseudo-social behavior. | 

4. By encouraging persons to rely on the state a paternalistic government 
produces pseudo-social behavior. | 


CONy OV 


— 
= 


al 
) 


DORIAN YW DH 


GROUP CONTROL PRODUCTS 367 


. Social controls too strong or misapplied tend to create anti-social re- 


actions and conduct. 


. Controls flabbily applied engender non-social behavior. 
. A healthy group life naturally creates social behavior. 
. Certain social stimuli acting on given persons bring out preéminently 


social behavior in the form of sacrifice of life either by a single 
act or through a sequence of acts. 


. The subtlest product of social control is found in standards or codes of 


behavior, which determine what behavior activities shall be permis- 
sible and which banned. 


. Social control becomes organized into institutions, which, when they 


exist chiefly to perpetuate themselves, are dangerous to personal 
liberty. 


. A scientific social control is characterized by a full knowledge of 


human associations, widely disseminated, and so organized and ap- 
plied as to produce thoroughly socialized persons. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. Give the most recent example of non-social behavior you have noticed. 


What produces falsely social behavior? 
Give a new illustration of pseudo-social behavior. 
Why is paternalism guilty of producing false expressions of conduct? 


. Explain the operation of the principle of anticipation. 


What are the main basic causes of anti-social behavior? 
Why is a large amount of behavior normally social? 


. Under what circumstances is preéminently social behavior produced ? 
. What is a social standard? 


. What is a human institution? 
. Why should both public and private institutions be encouraged in 


any field? 


. What is the main phase of scientific social control ? 


PROBLEMS 


. Define behavior. 
. What percentage of the behavior of an average adult unskilled labore: 


would you estimate to be non-social? 


. Of an average educated business man? 


368 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


RAS SaaI SSL IIa acca se RARER EM ee 

4. How may a sympathetic government prevent its members from mani- 

festing pseudo-social or favor-seeking behavior ? 

s. What is the best antidote for the false operation of the principle of 

anticipation ? 

6. Which is more apt to produce anti-social conduct, too abrupt applica- 
tion of social control, too much control, too little control, or the 
wrong type of control? 

. When do you feel the most anti-social ? 
. How may the quality of preéminently social behavior be improved ? 
9. How far are standards of behavior the result of the careful thought 
and reflective judgment of all the group members in a democracy 
such as the United States? 

10. Why is institutional control dangerous ? 

11. Why are so few controls scientifically determined even in civilized 
society ? 

12. How generally are individuals aware of being under group control ? 

13. Wherein would lie the need for social control if every group member 
were thoroughly socialized? 

14. What is the best way to estimate the volume of social control at any 
time in society? 

15. Illustrate: “There never has been a society that did not tolerate or 
approve some conduct that was bad for it.” 


CON 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Bristol, J. M., Social Adaptation (Harvard Univ. Press, 1915), Part V. 

Case, C. M., Non-Violent Coercion (Century, 1923), Ch. XXII. 

Ellwood, C. A., Introduction to Social Psychology (Appleton, 1917), 
Cheol. 

Follett, M. P., The New State (Longmans, Green: 1918), Ch. XV. 

Giddings, F. H., Studies in the Theory of Society (Macmillan, 1922), 
Che ay, 

Ross, E. A., Social Control (Macmillan, 1901). 

Principles of Sociology (Century, 1920), Part IV. 

Sin and Society (Houghton Mifflin, 1907). 

Williams, J. M., Principles of Social Psychology (Knopf, 1922), Ch. 
XXX. 

Wissler, Clark, Man and Culture (Crowell, 1923), Ch. XII. . 








a 


PART FOUR 
LEADERS AND INTERSTIMULATION 





CHAPTER XXXII 
ORIGINALITY 


RIGINALITY refers to doing new things. Original ways of doing 

attract attention to themselves and to the doers, creating thus a 
leadership prestige. Originality gives a person a striking position in inter- 
social stimulation. In all interaction there is the impact of action against 
action or of idea against idea, with the result that leadership and fol- 
lowership phenomena occur and new currents of social reaction are 
set up. 

In an examination of originality we may begin near at hand and ask 
parents to keep a record of their children’s actions and sayings. The 
results at once begin to pour in, and include a variety of unique things, 
of new terms coined, new toys invented, new and unexpected reactions 
made to various stimuli. The investigation does not proceed far before 
we conclude that nearly every child, at least before he becomes standard- 
ized by convention and custom, possesses the priceless trait of originality. 
Where he does not have copies by which to be guided he often reacts 
“strangely,” thereby demonstrating the universality of originality, of being 
different, of uniqueness. It is in the margins of uniqueness, 1. e., those 
ways of doing or saying which are different from those of one’s associates 
that originality is to be found. 


MARGINAL UNIQUENESS 


While persons are far more alike than different, it is their differences 
which attract attention to them. It has been estimated that the popula- 
‘tion of the earth could be multiplied forty times before there would be a 
probability of the exact duplication of the fingerprints of any two persons 
—a testimony to the existence of physical uniqueness. Intelligence and 
similar human nature tests, although still in an imperfect and experimental 
stage, show that no two persons are alike mentally, that each is different in 
one or more particulars from everyone else and hence unique. The social 
reactions of human beings to similar stimuli are often diverse beyond 
measure, and specific conduct traits are so distinctive that while behavior 
F a mass or of large numbers of persons is predictable, the behavior of an 

371 


| 
| 
| 


372 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


‘ndividual is not. Since these margins of uniqueness constitute origi- 
nality, a more or less spectacular, amazing, and influential factor in all 
social interaction, let us atalyze the origin of these margins. 

The bases of uniqueness and originality are found in part in differences 
in heredity. Because of the endless varieties of combinations possible 
in the unicellular origin of human life, it is almost certain that no twc 
children will have exactly the same inheritance. Twins may vary widely 
in their hereditary manifestations, while even so-called identical twins 
sooner or later manifest inherited variations. The apparent impossibility 
of exactly the same cellular start in life explains certain hereditary difter- 
ences and hence margins of uniqueness.’ 

The origins of uniqueness and originality are also found in the dif- 
ferences in human experiences and in the number, variety, and quality 
of social contacts. It is impossible for two persons to have identical ex- 
periences, the same social contacts, and the same stimuli all the time or. 
even most of the time, for the simple physical reason that two bodies 
cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Even in parental reactions 
to twins, for example, of the non-identical type, there are glaring dif- 
ferences. The sweet-tempered twin is at an advantage over the fretful 
one, especially when the parents are themselves tired and ill-humored. — 
Neither are so-called identical twins treated alike by parents, despite the 
desire of the latter to do so. One of the two receives attention prior to 
the other and at least under slightly differing circumstances of sympathy, © 
love, and fatigue. To the extent that the stimuli are different, the resultant 
reactions may be expected to be different, thus constituting uniqueness and 
even originality in conduct. | 

The mental reactions of parents to children of differing ages are di- 
verse. When a child reaches the ten year age limit, his parents are older 
than when his older brother or sister was ten, and hence their ica 
points of life have changed in certain particulars, causing them uncon- 
sciously to respond differently to the needs of the younger child than 
to the same needs of the older one when he was at the ten year mark. 
Thus, variations in treatment produce variations in reactions on the par 


See S. J. Holmes, The Trend of the Race (Harcourt, Brace: 1921), Ch. V; 
H. E. Walter, Genetics (Macmillan, 1921), Ch, II1; Popenoe and Johnson, Applie 
Eugenics (Macmillan, 1920), Chs. II-V. 

2For a further discussion of the original human nature factors, see E. L. Thorn 
dike, The Original Nature of Man (Teachers College, Columbia Univ.; 1920) 
Chs. I-III; J. B. Watson, Psychology (Lippincott, 1919), Chs. I-VII; and W. 
Pillsbury, Fundamentals of Psychology (Macmillan, 1922), Chs. VI, VII. 

*See Park and Burgess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology (Univ. 
Chicago Press, 1921), Ch. V; I. Edman, Human Traits and their Significance 
(Houghton Mifflin, 1918), Ch. IX. 












ORIGINALITY 373 


of the two children, and figure in the uniqueness of the personality of 
each. 

But if parental treatment of children varies greatly, how much dif- 
ferent also is the play life and environment, the school life, and the other 
daily experiences of children—especially if they belong to different fam- 
ilies, if they live in different parts of a city, or of the nation, or if they 
are members of different races with dissimilar traditions and cultures. In 
consequence, the environmental stimuli experienced by one person are in 
many ways unlike those of any other person. As contended by the present 
writer in another connection,* men’s margins of uniqueness and the origi- 
nalities in their behavior are thus partly the natural result of the wide 
range of possibilities in inheritance, in the unlimited variation in social 
stimuli, and in the incalculable interplay between all these factors. 

Oftentimes the inscrutability, and hence uniqueness or even originality 
of personality is due to relatively simple processes. For example, in con- 
centrating his attention painstakingly and persistently in a single direc- 
tion, a person can master all that is known along that line and thus put 
himself in the position of being able to make a new contribution to civiliza- 
tion. To the extent that he thus focalizes his psychic energy® he may 
build up a genuine uniqueness and an effective originality. If this focal- 
ization culminates in invention and leadership then the uniqueness of 
the individual may become a matter of public recognition and even of 
historical record. 

He who does something that no one else has achieved, who builds a 
new university, writes a new piece of social legislation, creates a socially 
stimulating poem, or she who contributes her life to developing a new com- 
munity spirit in her neighborhood, gives her days in self sacrifice to train- 
ing her children into becoming useful citizens, has demonstrated unique- 
ness and may be credited with real originality. He who by concentrated 
effort reaches the point where he knows more about one thing than any- 
one else does or who has learned to do one thing better than any one else is 
unique, original, and ipso facto a potential leader. To the extent that one 
leads in defying a particular evil in politics, business, education, or religion 
he is thereby justly accounted original. 

Originality is the essence of individuality. If personality comprises 
reactions which are similar the world over, it also is characterized by re- 

““Man’s Margin of Uniqueness,” Jour. of Applied Sociology, VII:207-211. 

*For an elaboration of the stirring concept of “focalizing” one’s psychic energy, 
see L. F. Ward, Pure Sociology (Macmillan, 1914), p. 36. 


°For an explanation of the relation of the born genius to the hard-work genius, 
see the following chapter on “Genius and Talent. 


374 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


ON OE a ee 
actions which are new, unique, and original, that is by individuality. 
Uniqueness of inherited traits combined with uniqueness of experience 
are a double guarantee of individuality. Thus every person above the 
moron level may build up points of view which are distinctly his own, 
and which distinguish him from his fellow group members, and which 
constitute evidences of originality. | 
Vocational guidance depends in a way upon discovering an individual’s 
variations or his originalities. When we describe a person as a round 
peg in a square hole, or as having missed his calling, we often mean that 
his margins of originality have been ignored. These margins give a 
person fields of activity and development in which no one can compete 
with him. A cross section of one’s “margins” discloses what one can do 
that others cannot. In these non-competitive, original phases of per- 
sonality there is unlimited room for invention, leadership, and social 
achievement. 
Since originality gives leadership advantages and since every person, 
of at least ordinary intelligence, possesses original traits, everyone thus 
may be considered as having potential leadership qualities. Moreover, the 
unique and original traits of persons interact as vigorous stimuli and con- 
sequently originality in the absence of repression is multiplied indefinitely. 


STIMULATION OF ORIGINALITY 


Democracy stimulates originality. The hope of a dynamic democracy 
is found in uniqueness. The masses are often deemed a herd, all alike 
and drab in mental color; but as individuals they possess margins of origi- 
nality with surprising possibilities of contributing to group advance. By 
educating all the people their margins of originality may function; social 
interactions will be characterized by countless new stimuli; and group life 
will become colorful with unnumbered hues of new activities. Educa- 
tion may easily give a premium value to the margins of originality of all 
persons and make democracy perhaps a thousandfold more dynamic than 
any other form of social control. 

People do not stimulate each other by their likenesses so much as by 
their unlikenesses. Submerge the margins of originality and life will 
fail to rise above mediocrity, and progress will cease. Stimulate and 
expand and enrich originalities and human life will throb with new vigor 
and power. But this giant of power will need to be harnessed by sociali- 
zation, or else it may turn against human welfare. 

Migration and travel bring comparisons and lead to particularizations. 


j 
; 


: 


ORIGINALITY 375 





Migration indirectly brings about an adaptation of one culture to another 
with possible improvements upon one or both. Travel sets the comparing 
mental processes at work, new ideas “are brought home,’ and sooner 
or later improvements upon even these ideas may appear, for rarely does 
an importation take the place of an old technique. 

Scientific education awakens originality. It develops the questioning 
method and draws personality out along new lines of thought and en- 
deavor. It gives comparative bases for thinking and hence arouses new 
mental activity. It creates a sense of new needs and a dissatisfaction 
with previously accepted ideas. Consequently, the individual is thrust 
into a condition of mental unrest that may eventuate in new and dis- 
tinctive social products. 

Research naturally leads to original findings. When a trained person, 
who has mastered a given technique and a specific field of knowledge, 
devotes his abilities methodically to exploration and experimentation in 
that field, original discoveries or inventions are sooner or later almost 
certain to appear. Research brings established customs under criticism 
and challenges conventionalized beliefs with the result that new standards 
are called forth. 

Individualization often liberates originalities. E. A. Ross explains indi- 
vidualization in terms of “the processes which pulverize social lumps and 
release the action of their members.” 7 Crusts form over a group until in- 
dividual initiation is crushed or smothered. Ideas and social techniques 
tend to become formalized and red tape multiplies until the individual 
loses much,of his autonomy. A social procedure that redounds to the 
profit of a few individuals, of an “interest,” or “clique,” and is used 
by such a minority to further itself in power and to enrich its members 
is enforced with an iron hand by the minority while the “masses” are 
robbed of a chance to express their individualities and hence their origi- 
nalities. A slave system punished severely any slave who showed a “will 
of his own;” it required docility and uniformity. A large orphans’ home 
gives to each child much less than a normal degree of development as 
persons. The conventional method of dealing with convicted per- 
sons has been to standardize the punishment according to the offense 
rather than to provide for varying treatment according to the offenders. 
An army officer gives an order and the men do not respond freely in in- 
dividual ways but in one standardized and habitualized way. The ten- 
dency is to standardize individuals so completely that they become a 
“mass,” with no chance for the expression of originality. 

"Principles of Sociology (Century, 1920), p. 439. 


376 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


cof A MNCS SU USES MRSS iP RNG SERS Sem 

New experiences and new situations promote originality. A person 
finds that established ways of doing do not meet new situations and *is 
forced to initiate. New experiences contain new stimuli which arouse 
latent originalities. 

Revolutions stimulate originality in “beating the established game’ or 
régime, in securing an opportunity to start and execute a successful over- 
throw. To the extent that a revolution destroys customary procedure 
for the common needs of life, originality is necessary in devising new 
techniques. 

Faith in progress furnishes important stimuli to originality. New 
ideals are postulated and new methods for attaining ideals are invented. 
Faith in progress is the mental atmosphere in which originality in busi- 
ness, teaching, and so on is generated. 

Discussion if well conducted creates originality. Ideas are brought 
together and pooled; in the pooling, new ideas are generated. Ideas are. 
synthesized and new ones take form. The live discussion group arouses 
more originality in thinking perhaps than can be done by any other social 
means. 


AGE AND ORIGINALITY 


Originality is clearly related to the first half of life, when energies 
abound and are freely expressed in new, unanticipated, and original di- 
rections. Youth is ambitious and dares to do that which has never been 
achieved and hence what is often original. The desire for personal ad- 
vancement, to outdo a competitor, or to receive public acclaim sometimes 
leads to surprising exhibitions of prowess in novel and original ways. 
Youth with its limited experiences and its ambitious fervor creates il- 
lusions for itself. It rushes in where wiser heads would be cautious; it 
often plunges against unexpected obstacles, but occasionally, to the amaze- 
ment of mature counselors, it achieves the “impossible,” and in so doing 
manifests original traits that otherwise would not have been called into 
being. Oftentimes the choicest exhibitions of originality are displayed 
in childhood, before behavior has become standardized in accordance with 
customs and conventions. 

As the years of maturity come and middle life is passed, originality in 
behavior decreases. Reactions to life, even to the new problems of 
life, “harden into habits;” old ways of meeting new problems prevail. 
The increasing conservatism of age, based on habitual ways of meeting 
life’s obstacles, is fatal to originality. When one has thought a proble 

®*T. S. Knowlson, Originality (Laurie, London, 1918), p. 133. 







ORIGINALITY 377 





through once and come to a decision, and has resorted to that decision re- 
peatedly, habit rules and originality is at an end. Then there is ultimately 
a decline of the mental powers of the individual which sets in, and para- 
lyzes what originality may exist. Originality, therefore, we may expect 
to find expressed in the early years of life, certainly before the age of 45, 
but in later years also in those persons who maintain a physical and mental 
exuberance and at the same time habits of honest inquiry with reference 
to every phase of life. 


SEX AND ORIGINALITY 


It has been customary to rate man the more original of the sexes. As 
evidence man’s superior achievements and his predominance in the field 
of inventions have been repeatedly cited. On the other hand man’s wider 
and more numerous social contacts have beén conceded as accounting 
for nearly all of his superior achievements; and woman’s limitation, 
educationally, industrially, and in every other way, has been offered as 
explaining her relatively poor showing. 

To the extent that woman matures earlier than man, her powers have 
less chance of development.® Her development is functional, relating 
to her traits as a woman and a mother. Nature and custom seem to have 
circumscribed and standardized woman’s sphere, at least historically, 
until surplus energies had no outlet except in gossiping, in giving recurring 
attention to dress, or in other limiting ways. 

The relative brain power and originality possibilities of the two sexes 
are unknown, for the achievements of men may be accounted for by a 
larger range of activities and more varied stimuli. Woman’s “flashes of 
insight,” or her intuition, to use a popular term, may give her a superior 
claim to originality, although the significance of this intuitiveness is often 
exaggerated. Intuition may be nature’s defence for woman against the 
handicaps of a circumscribed sphere and the consequent limitation of 
technique and knowledge which man has had a better opportunity to 
acquire. 

Love awakens original effort. While much of this product is “mush,” 
the evidences of worth-while originality are not missing. As the mocking 
bird strikes new notes and “outdoes himself” in singing to his mate at 
some midnight hour, so the spirit of love has prompted the writing of 
poetry, the composition of librettos, the painting of masterpieces, and 
perhaps original achievements in the scientific laboratory, as well as un- 
limited routine tasks by earth’s millions. It would be surprising indeed 

*Knowlson, Originality, pp. 138 ff. 


378 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


a  — — ——— 


if out of this vast volume of achievement made up of “millions of small 
increments in all lands and all shades and grades of life, building ever 
higher and broader the coral reef of civilization,” *° there did not appear 
many evidences of originality. 


INSPIRATION AND ORIGINALITY 


The field of inspiration as a phase of originality is scientifically unex- 
plored. Inspiration, as such, has usually been berated by science, and yet 
it persists in its claims. One of the difficulties is that of measuring it 
or of referring to it objectively. It is so highly subjective and elusive 
that it has been greatly underrated by science. 

Another disadvantage is that inspiration often violates all known social 
laws. The vagaries of the artistic temperament are well known. Inspi- 
ration reacts against law, especially of the conventional and customary | 
types as well as law in its legal forms. It is constantly thus receiving the 
disapproval if not the scorn of conservative people. 

Inspiration waits on mood, whereas the scientific procedure is to work 
and to keep on working. Inspiration knows no ten-hour day; it revolts 
against any standardization of work. It works when it feels like it, and 
insists on long siestas. It does not know its own nature and its coming 
cannot be forecasted or courted to any extent. At the middle of the 
night or in the early morning hours or at whatever unexpected hours it 
comes, it must be caught and promptly put into objective form of verse, 
musical composition, or of other expression that best suits its delicate 
and highly attuned nature.** : 

Even the scientific man finds his best work being done rhythmically. A 
university president reports: | 


| 


All my books and even more serious articles have been written with a certain 
fervor which I am very prone to overwork and, as the task proceeds, | am 
pushed by an interest that takes possession of me and which I have to restrain. 
And after each one is done there is always a feeling of impotence and ex- 
haustion in which I lie fallow and abandon myself to the luxury of reading, 
which at first tends to be desultory until slowly another center of interest is 
constellated which may culminate in an urge to write in order to express 
my personal reaction upon the material that has been accumulated.” 











Inspiration is related to genius. It is generally accredited with con- 
stituting genius. It undoubtedly possesses strong hereditary lines of 

*L. F. Ward, Pure Sociology, p. 403. 

4 Ibid., pp. 77-86. ; 

2G. Stanley Hall, Life and Confessions of a Psychologist (Appleton, 1923) 
P. 573. 


ORIGINALITY 379 


descent. It defies scientific cultivation, seeming to operate according to 
laws of its own. Its unheralded appearance and its startling manifesta- 
tions align it with many of the chief characteristics of genius. 

The connection between the subconscious and inspiration is by no 
means clear, but since inspiration is beyond conscious control it is to be 
identified in part with the subconscious. Inspiration springs from the 
non-conscious levels into original products without much relation, often- 
times, to objective stimuli. The hereditary phases of originality seem 
to remain hidden in the mysteries of the unconscious except as now and 
then, at “inspired moments” originality is manifested in overt action. 

The relation of inspiration and originality to the feelings is another 
puzzling question. Inspiration is often exaltation of feeling, but in this 
form it quickly effervesces without producing original results. When a 
large feeling element is combined with the sturdier qualities of intelli- 
gence, as in the case of wit, or of writing an original poem, inspiration 
is at its best. Originality reaches its highest levels when its hereditary 
qualities find expression in the exaltation of emotion tempered and made 
rational by intelligent guidance. 


PRINCIEEES 


1. New types of behavior are the chief evidences of originality. 

2. Originality, other conditions being favorable, produces leadership. 

3. It is in a person’s margins of uniqueness that his originality is ex- 
pressed. 

4. Originality consists in inherited qualities that are developed by 
social contacts. 

5. Since each person’s social contacts, and hence his social stimuli, are 
widely different in many aspects from any other person’s contacts, 
he would develop unique traits even though his hereditary traits 
were not unique. 

6. The merit of vocational guidance is to be found in part in diag- 
nosing a child’s originality traits, which, however, do not all reach 
fruition until maturity. 


7. To stimulate originality is one of the main functions of democracy. 
8. Education and individualism liberate originality. 

9. Originality culminates in the first half of life. 

10. Originality is distributed more or less evenly between the sexes. 

11. Inspiration, although intangible and elusive, is an important phase of 


originality. 


380 


mo 


Lom 
~ 


12. 


13. 


ODO ON An AW DN 


. Give a new illustration of creative synthesis among mental phenomena. 
. Can you postulate a law showing the correlation between individuality — 


. Why should the later years of life be the most original rather than 


. What is intuition ? 

. What is inspiration? 

. Can you name any scientific basis of inspiration ? 

. What method of conducting a class calls forth most originality in the 


FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. What is originality ? 

. How common is originality ? 

. What is the relation of originality to leadership? 

. What is meant by “margins of uniqueness” ? 

. What are the three main sources of marginal uniqueness? 


What is the relation of social contacts to originality ? 
How may one obtain originality? By deliberately seeking it? 


. In what ways does originality enrich democracy ? 
. What is individuation ? 
. Why does originality flourish in the days of one’s youth and early 


maturity ? 


. Why have men made more inventions than women? 
$2; 


How is inspiration and originality related ? 


PROBLEMS 


. What is the derivation of the term, originality? 
. When does originality fail of producing leadership? | 
. Why is vocational guidance especially difficult when viewed social- — 


psychologically ? 


ey 









and originality ? 
Why does autocracy cherish a theory of mental mediocrity or inferi- 
ority concerning the masses of the people ? . 


the least? 


student ? 
What might parents do in the home to stimulate originality in their 
children ? 
How do the best factory managers encourage originality in their 
workmen? | 


ORIGINALITY 381 





14. Compare in detail the type of education which aims to stimulate 
originality with that which aims to produce acquiescence and 
obedience. 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Dewey, John, Human Nature and Conduct (Holt, 1922), pp. 95-105. 

Edman, Irwin, Human Traits and their Significance (Houghton Mifflin, 
1920), Ch. IX. 

Follett, M. P., The New State (Longmans, Green: 1918), Chs. VII-IV. 

Knowlson, T. S., Originality (Laurie, London, 1918). 

Ribot, T., The Creative Imagination (Falcan, Paris, 1921). 

Ross, E. A., Principles of Sociology (Century, 1920), Ch. I-VI. 

Ward, L. F., The Psychic Factors of Civilization (Ginn, 1906), Chs. 
XXI-XXVI. 


CHAPTER XXXIII 
GENIUS AND TALENT 


hae quality of intersocial stimulation depends partly on genius and 
talent. These human traits are scientifically known as special apti- 
tudes; and popularly, as “natural bents.” A person with a special apti- 
tude is sometimes referred to as a mathematics ‘“‘shark” or a mechanics 
“wizard.” 


SPECIAL APTITUDES 


The special aptitudes are inborn tendencies possessed by some persons, 
but not by others. Their origin is unknown, although their preservation 
is undoubtedly influenced by selection. Their presence is usually mani- 
fested in the early years of life between the ages of five and ten. They 
usually make their appearance without special stimulation, but their 
development depends upon the nature of the social environment and its 
types of interaction. Where interaction is on a low intelligence level, 
special aptitudes may never be recognized as such, being “born to blush 
unseen.” 

Without the stimuli that come from an environment of intelligence and 
of active culture the special aptitudes scarcely rise above potential levels. 
Galton’s theory that genius will express itself irrespective of environment 
and social interaction is rash It is by no means clear that a “genius,” 
even though he maintains his health, is bound to rise to eminence. Such 
a theory, which fails to appreciate the significance of social stimulation 
was challenged first by Ward,” and has since fallen into wide disrepute. 
It may be assumed that the quality and amount of social stimuli are 
influential in developing the special aptitudes constituting genius and 
talent. 

Special aptitudes may exist but the social environment may provide few 
or no opportunities for their expression, and hence they wither away be- 
fore their development is scarcely begun. Where poverty rules there 1 
little chance for their expression. Economic circumstances may easily limi 
mental interaction, and in consequence, the special aptitudes fail of pro 











, Galton, Hereditary Genius (Macmillan, 1892), p. 34. 
Applied Sociology (Ginn, 1906), pp. 115 ff. ; 
382 


GENIUS AND TALENT 383 


stimulation. Parents may recognize that a child is talented but be unable 
to give him training advantages, that is, the proper stimuli. 


MUTATION AND SPECIAL APTITUDE 


The appearance of a special aptitude in certain children, but not in 
others, remains a mystery. The biologist, our authority in these matters, 
is still puzzled. The appearance of “talents” is unaccounted for biologi- 
cally. The laws of heredity are undoubtedly operative, but their 
intricacies are as yet unfathomed. Mental abilities are clearly inherited ; 
mental defectiveness responds to the laws of heredity; and superior 
mental ability likewise is governed, but is as likely to follow the laws of 
mutation as of ordinary variation. Special ability is as apt, or almost as 
apt, to appear in a child who is born in a tenement as in one who is born 
ina mansion. Herein is found the democracy of special aptitudes. 

Mentally superior people may have mentally superior children, but 
this is partly accounted for, particularly by the fact that such children 
have had the advantage of superior parental stimulation and an active 
culture.* The eugenist recognizes indirectly, however, that mental stimula- 
tion plays an important role in the rise of genius. “Great men, it is true, 
seem to rise higher than their source.” * He is right, of course, in saying 
that you cannot make “good ability out of inborn dullness by all the 
aids which environment and education or anything else can possibly 
offer.” 

Special ability appears in illiterate as well as in educated homes. Where 
there are economic and social disadvantages it requires encouragement 
from society in order that it may be conserved and directed into socially 
useful channels. Special ability that appears among the children of the 
very wealthy also requires attention from society, for it may be wasted 
in riotous living. Economic affluence may fail to stimulate special ability 
to its best achievements, and the loss to society be as great as when poverty 
smothers genius. The mutant theory of the appearance of genius requires 
that society provide democratically for stimulation of special aptitudes in 
all who may possess them. 

In recent years intelligence tests have demonstrated variations in the 
inheritance and development of intelligence. They claim to measure 
“native intelligence.” They seem to measure “native capacity plus environ- 
mental contributions.” ® Be this as it may, however, they show definitely 


7Cf. S. J. Holmes, The Trend of the Race (Harcourt, Brace: 1921), p. 116. 
*Tbid., p. 115. 
°C. M. Case, Non-Violent Coercion (Century, 1922), p. 8. 


384 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





that the “‘intelligence” of different individuals varies greatly. Their 
champions have consequently emphasized unduly the differences in mental 
abilities, and thereby have ‘been guilty of three errors. In the first place 
they have sometimes persuaded themselves that intelligence ratings are 
inclusive of all phases of intelligence and not simply of those that can be 
measured. In the second place they have considered intelligence as 
somewhat inclusive of all mental abilities, not to say, all psychical abilities. 
In the third place the differences in achievement which they have found 
have led them into a theory of an aristocracy of ability. They are scientific 
in purpose, but have sheltered serious fallacies. 

Tests of emotion, of accomplishment, of ‘will,’ and so forth need to be 
perfected and their results pooled with those of intelligence tests before 
a true personality rating can even be approximated. Even then there 
may be some phases of personality that will not respond to mathematical 
measurement, and these phases may be even more significant than those. 
that lend themselves to statistical treatment. Much may be hoped for, 
however, in the development of inclusive personality tests, and these 
apparently while giving credit to inherited traits may reveal the results 
of social interaction to be of startling proportions. 


THE DEMOCRACY OF TALENT 


The democracy of talent includes (1) the fact that special ability appears 
indiscriminately among people of all social classes. This seems to 
demonstrate the common human nature of all people. (2) While talent 
of one type appears in certain people, a different type appears in other — 
people, and so on; hence, it seems fair to assume that natural “gifts” are 
not as one-sided in their inheritance as a snap judgment might indicate. 
(3) The development of talent involves social stimulation. Its full ex- 
pression, even of an “individualistic” talent such as musical ability, depends _ | 
upon mental interaction and the stimuli which come from a civilized — 
culture. Talent is socially dependent. (4) Since talent is inherited and | 
is also dependent for its development on social interaction, its possessor 
is only a steward, and its use and enjoyment therefore bears democratic 
obligations. | 

(5) The appearance of genius is not confined to one sex. Historically 
woman did not have opportunity to translate her latent talent into achieve- : 
ment, and much ability undoubtedly remained dormant. In recent decades, 
however, in our country particularly, woman has been released from the 
trammels of a household drudge or a pet in a doll’s house; she has b 







GENIUS AND TALENT 385 


encouraged to rely on her own resources and to initiate and lead. In 
consequence, she has been forging ahead rapidly and availing herself of 
increasing opportunities. Competing with men in nearly all lines of human 
endeavor she is demonstrating her versatile abilities. In the public schools 
today girls remain long after boys become restless and leave. More 
women are availing themselves of a liberal education than men. Since 
a liberal education is basic to public leadership, women may attain the 
controlling positions in forming public opinion and hence of deter- 
mining the trend of social progress. At any rate, when all the processes 
of mental interaction are open to them on equal terms with men, women 
bid fair to display as much special ability as do men. Their talents may 
run in part along unique lines but at least they do not seem to be slighted 
by Nature as it was once conventional to think. 


GENIUS AND SOCIAL MISFITS 


To Lombroso genius is a form of insanity.6 Genius represents such 
a large concentration of mental ability along a particular line of behavior 
that its development tends to create a one-sided, unbalanced mentality. 
The genius is often a crank and as such resembles insane persons with 
their “hobbies” and tendencies to concentrate on single ideas. 

Lombroso’s theory is only partially true, namely, when genius through 
prolonged concentration or through adverse circumstances breaks down 
under the strain. At such times the transition from genius to insanity 
has perhaps been made. There are instances where one mental condition 
shades into the other, but these are exceptions rather than the rule. The 
normal genius functions differently from the normal insane person; he 
is far remote in behavior and achievement from the violently insane. 

The genius, in social interaction, is often a misfit. His ideas may be so 
far out of harmony with currently conceived views that he is dubbed 
“crazy.” It is not the real genius who is crazy, but rather the people, per- 
haps, who call him so. There are many would-be geniuses, or “crazy” 
people who mistake themselves for geniuses. The genius at his best, 
however, finds difficulty in functioning normally in interaction processes. 
He grows impatient and fumes against errors and the slowness of current 
reformations ; he may even withdraw from social interaction, and become 
a recluse. The genius may easily fall into attitudes that are “insane,” as 
judged by prevalent standards. It is only by biding his time that he at- 
tains a reputation of mental sobriety, but this waiting on progress is almost 
impossible to such a specialist as the genius. 

*The Man of Genius (London, 1891). 


386 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


Ee ne SS en ea a Ia TI BITS TTS SEES TTT" 


THE STIMULATION OF GENIUS 


Odin,’ a French writer of the nineteenth century, Lester F. Ward,* a 
founder of American sociology, and more recently G. R. Davies °® have 
discussed with increasing scientific accuracy the decisive factors in 
transforming inherited talent and special ability into actual achievement. 
The emphasis is put on the influence of environmental stimuli; that is, 
upon social interaction. Where there are certain inherited traits, develop- 
ment will not take place automatically, but waits on social stimulation or 
may actually be prevented by social repression. The keynote to achieve- 
ment, even of the special kinds that genius produces, is found in social 
stimulation and social repression. 

An important corollary of this theory is at once apparent. If society 


is unenlightened it will unwittingly crush, or at least fail to stimulate . 


properly the genius and talents of its more gifted members. Since it 
is difficult to find even today any society which gives scientific considera- 
tion to searching out genius and talent, especially among the less fortunate 
social classes, and properly encouraging it, it is clear that the waste of 
genius must be incalculable. In the lowest economic strata of society very 
little is done in most countries, and nothing in some countries, to conserve 
and train the special abilities of the children of the poor. If eighty or 
ninety per cent of the time and energy of the human population have been 
and are confined to earning bread and butter, how much superior ability 
must thus be kept from expression. Even a man who demonstrated the 
possession of a master mind declares: “No, it is true I have accomplished 
a certain amount, but who knows what I might have done if my mind had 


not had to put forth so much effort and time on the daily necessities of — 


hfe ce 


In the higher economic strata special ability is also wasted. In these — 


situations there is not repression but rather lack of stimulation. Genius 


does not rise to its heights ordinarily without persistent effort, but the 


possession of much wealth is not conducive to prolonged exertion and 


hence soothes even genius to mediocrity. In the homes of wealth the — 


young may form habits of indulgence, from which they rarely escape and 
which drug talent and genius. 
Another phase of the Odin-Ward theory is that lack of public apprecia- 


*Genéese des grands hommes (Paris, 1895). 

* Applied Sociology (Ginn, 1916), Part j HN 

* Social Environment (McClurg, 1917), Chii¥ 

* Emily P. Cape, Lester F. Ward, A Personal Sketch (Putnam, 1922), p. 50. 


a eee 


OLE aE Ol tle oh 


GENIUS AND TALENT 387 


tion is often fatal to the development of genius. As we examine the 
newspapers today and the news values by which the reading public 
governs them we observe how scandal, vice, and crime are rated high 
and given the big headlines while achievement, scholastic effort, or special 
ability without official position behind it usually receives totally inadequate 
recognition. If the public mind is that of the fourteen year old adolescent 
it is easily perceived why special ability is dubbed “highbrow” or else 
is ignored and neglected. ‘The large prizes today go to those who are 
trained to manipulate their fellows, who work in the field of “profits,” 
while inventors of social and spiritual worth often eke out a miserable 
existence and die in poverty. The public is composed of so many individ- 
ualistic persons absorbed in seeking pecuniary gain that it cannot give 
attention to or fully appreciate the person of genius who is willing to 
devote his abilities to public service. 

Moreover, there is educational discrimination in favor of the well-to- 
do and the wealthy ; the “foreigners” beyond the “railroad tracks” receive 
proportionately much less than their share of the public expenditures for 
education. The Negro likewise is slighted. The children of the wealthy 
command special tutors and have the advantages of travel and cultured 
parents, while the children of the poor cannot even dream of many of 
these stimulating advantages. Special ability thus is allowed to slumber in 
half or two-thirds of a whole population. 


GENIUS AND ACHIEVEMENT 


The decisive factors in transforming inherited talent and special ability 
into achievement have been well analyzed by Odin, Ward, and Davies. 
A study of the various facts shows four fundamental conditions. 

1. A social environment which is mentally stvmulating. Genius 
rarely matures under a widespread pall of mental stagnation. There must 
be mental contacts which strike fire and some general appreciation of the 
achievements that a genius can effect. 

2. Thorough training. There are only a few successful persons today 
who have not spent time and energy in developing and perfecting tech- 
niques. It is becoming increasingly true that special ability must have a 
commensurate scholastic and practical training as a basis for complete self- 
expression. It is fair to assume that the greater the potential ability the 
greater will be the value of both extensive and intensive training. Nearly 
all accredited geniuses, whether of the Paderewski or the Edison type, 
report that many hours daily are spent in “practice” and hence in training. 


388 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


Se gu A en 
In order that all the special abilities of a person may be fully developed, 
his education must begin early, proceed as systematically as possible, and 
be continued throughout life. The greater the genius the more imperative 
is a thorough training. 

3. Freedom from the struggle for bread. If energy is continually 
expended in securing the necessities of life, genius is to that extent 
hampered. Sufficient means for travel and research is another essential. 

4. Social respect as a medium for the development of self respect. 
Persons with special talent are often a thermometer of the social reflections 
of themselves. A genius is handicapped if he grows up as a member of a 
race that is despised by a dominant race, in a community where luxury 
spreads an enervating virus, or where vice in any form destroys the 
energies of life. 


TYPES OF SPECIAL ABILITY 


Intelligence testing reveals many gradations of mental ability ; when the 
intelligence quotient exceeds 1.20, superior mental ability exists. Then, 
there are other evidences of talent, such as musical ability, and executive 
ability, which intelligence tests do not reach. In these cases it is inherited 
capacity in given directions to which reference presumably is made. The 
“born genius” is the type most commonly talked about. In these instances 
a high degree of focalization of psychic energy has been effected by 
nature,? and the individual is thereby enabled under normal stimuli to 
achieve marvelous results along the line of his “genius.” 

A second and more common type of genius is “genius by hard work.” 
The first type is a genius chiefly by inheritance ; the second, primarily by 
personal initiative. The born genius has had the nature and type of the 
focalization of his psychic energy determined for him; for example, in the 
line of artistic or mathematical ability. The genius by hard work chooses 
for himself, with the aid of others, the direction in which he shall focalize 
his energies. The persistent concentration of the attention of an ordinary 
person in one line of mental endeavor will give that person, barring acci- 
dents, the rank of a leader in that sphere. The genius by hard work has” 
special advantages over the born genius. The former has the opportunity 
to select, within limits, the field in which his energies are to be concen- 
trated; that is, the field in which he may develop special ability and 


4Tester F, Ward, Pure Sociology (Macmillan, 1914), P. 36. 
Where nature has concentrated an unusual degree of special ability in oné 
person the result is what is popularly known as a “prodigy.” 


ape one 


GENIUS AND TALENT 389 


become a “genius,” whereas the latter must accept whatever field 
nature endowed him for. Again, the genius by deliberate concentration 
is in a better position to appreciate the value of his abilities than is the born 
genius, for he has paid a heavy price for achievement and knows its worth. 
The born genius, on the other hand, is apt to take his gift for granted, and 
even waste it in commonplace living. 

Geniuses by virtue of deliberate focalization are far more numerous 
than born geniuses. They are, as a rule, better balanced, more practical, 
but less brilliant and spectacular. They are the product of personal choice 
and social interaction. The role of social stimuli is probably great. If 
nature has not focalized one’s psychic energy for him, and made him a 
potential genius, he may focalize his energy himself and become a 
“genius,’ providing there be sufficient social stimulation. As no born 
genius would have his special abilities developed without the aid of social 
stimuli, so the genius by hard work is doubly so indebted. 

Then, there is a form of pseudo-genius; that is, of persons who are 
credited with being geniuses, but who in reality have been accidentally 
favored with social circumstances. With mediocre ability they have 
happened to be walking across the stage of life at the place where the spot- 
light has flashed, and they have been credited with being great. Others 
have inherited wealth and enough of common sense to enable them to 
remain in positions of vast power, with the real organization work that 
supports them being done by competent and well-paid underlings. 


GENIUS AND REGRESSION 


It is often remarked that the sons of great geniuses rarely attain the 
parental level of achievement. There is much evidence to support this 
contention. The chief explanation is to be found perhaps in the law of 
regression. The biologist has found that ordinarily offspring tend to in- 
herit qualities nearer the average of the species than do their parents. 
This tendency offsets in a way the laws of variation and gives a central 
core of inheritance. The parent may be widely variant in some inherited 
trait, but by the law of regression his offspring, as far as the inheritance 
of his trait is concerned, will revert toward the standard. 

The social interaction factors in the failure of children of distinguished 
parents are also significant. By indulgences parents prevent capable 
children from being stimulated into achievement. In wishing their children 
to have “an easier time” than they had in the early years of life, they 
unwittingly swing to the opposite extreme and do not allow their children 


390 | FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


to experience situations where the latter must struggle for themselves. 
Life conditions are made “soft,” appropriate stimuli to do difficult things 
are withheld—hence the children of eminent parents rarely rise to high 
levels. Again, because too much is often expected of such children, they 
re-act unfavorably, and may even swing to anti-social extremes. Some- 
times, eminent parents are in the social limelight so much that the children 
revolt against “having no more privacy than a gold fish in a bowl;” they 
deliberately seek the quiet life, the life away from the glamor. 


GENIUS AND VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 


In connection with genius and special abilities vocational guidance has 
functions of the greatest importance. It has not yet developed methods 
of detecting geniuses and persons who may become geniuses by hard work. 
The technique of mental testing is as yet inadequate, and hence vocational 
guidance cannot be dogmatic or arbitrary. 

Special ability may not mature until a person reaches thirty-five or 
forty years of age. Since persons display new abilities even in middle life 
and surprise their close friends by unanticipated achievement, vocational 
guidance is under obligation to go slow in pronouncing final judgment on 
the life work for a fourteen-year old boy or girl. 

The super-normal is only recently receiving special attention 
educationally. Such attention does not necessarily mean that the pre- 
cocious youth will be encouraged in his precociousness, but rather he will 
be given a well-balanced physical and mental development in addition to 
careful training of his special ability. Instead of skipping grades in 
school he is kept in his regular grade but given more and a greater variety © 
of work to do. Each grade is made rich for him according to his 
ability. Instead of being hurried perpendicularly through the grades, he 
takes each in order but uses his greater ability to work out horizontally 
farther in each grade than his fellows do. 

An important function of vocational guidance, as soon as special abili- 
ties have been noted, is to encourage the possessors of talent to enter 
lines of activity, not primarily where they can earn the most money, but | 
where they can best express their whole personalities ; that is, in occupa- — 
tions and professions where constructive social welfare principles may be 
furthered, and where mental interaction is being socialized. : 


GENIUS AND SOCIAL VALUES 


Genius is unsocial; that is, it may be spent in either social or anti-— 
social directions, according to the prevailing stimuli in the social situations — 


GENIUS AND TALENT 301 





in which its possessor is reared and finds his life work. It is as easily 
turned into exploitation as into service. Primary groups are of special 
importance, for they determine the basis of development of genius. Society 
bears a degree of responsibility, for it may carelessly allow its geniuses to 
destroy the very foundations of civilization. Genius is in especial danger 
of being “bought up” by evil, designing men and by “interests.” 

Genius easily reacts against traditions, conventions, and customs. 
Being “different” it revolts against standardization, red tape, and 
formalism. By being “different,” genius may be “far ahead of the times,” 
and thus be deluded into the belief that even the best values of the present 
are antiquated. The genius tends to become an iconoclast, a critic, a 
revolutionist. Consequently, society has difficulty in distinguishing between 
its geniuses and its criminals. The fearless critic is mistaken for the anti- 
socially inclined. Both the genius and the criminal may be destructive of 
current values but from different attitudes. Society tends to label its 
geniuses as “undesirables ;” it may even imprison or crucify them; and 
then, decades or centuries after they have “perished ignominiously” honor 
them and hallow their memories, i.e., Socrates, John Hus, Columbus, 
Galileo, Joan of Arc. 

In the public schools it is genius which is often recalcitrant, because of 
impatience with an iron-clad standardization. Youthful genius resents 
rules; it loves primeval freedom; that is, freedom without restraint, and 
easily chafes at ordinary school discipline. It rarely has a balanced sense 
of social values. Being an extremist in biological type, or at least in 
achievement type, it is out of tune with the normal and has often ex- 
pressed a one-sided attitude toward social values. Genius is apt to be 
either an arch-critic of social values or else an arch-exponent of certain 
innovations among social values which it advocates with vigor but not 
always with scientific validity. 

A new recognition is needed of genius that is expended in the 
furtherance of social values rather than being devoted to aggrandizement. 
This recognition may take on eugenic aspects, which, however, are not 
related so much to distinguishing between “superior races” and “inferior 
races” but to distinguishing between the superior and inferior members 
of every race. Each race apparently has both superior and inferior 
members. The Slavic race in Europe today is undoubtedly “superior” 
to the Nordic race five thousand years ago. Social stimulation and 
encouragement are needed for all the individuals irrespective of race. 

Special ability and intersocial stimulation are correlates. The first is 
matured by the latter, and the latter in turn seems to create the former 


392 + +FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





indirectly ; that is, it creates special achievement and leadership opportuni- 
ties. The greatest development of special ability occurs where social inter- 
action is most active and free. 


PRINCIPLES 


1. The quality of intersocial stimulation depends upon the nature of the 
genius and talent that is involved. 

2. Genius refers to inherited special aptitudes, which for their develop- 
ment are dependent on mental interaction, 

3. Intelligence tests which measure inherited mental ability plus the 
effect of social stimuli are not a safe criterion of the presence of 
potential genius of the hard work variety. 

4. Special ability appears with equal frequency in children of poor and 
wealthy families. 

5. Genius, because of its concentrated nature, easily makes its possessor 
unbalanced, and hence its resemblance on occasion to insanity. 

6. In the born genius nature has focalized the individual’s psychic energy, 
but in the genius by hard work the individual plays a part in 
focalizing his psychic energy himself along lines that he may choose. 

7. Society is careless of genius, allowing much of it to be wasted. 

8. A born genius, as distinguished from a genius by hard work, is often 
careless with the abilities nature has generously given him. 

g. Genius easily “sells out” to aggrandizement, and hence works to the 
detriment of society; its socialization is an unusually vital concern 
to society. 

10. Vocational guidance, which cannot detect all special ability inasmuch 
as it may not be expressed until the mature years of life, has the 
responsibility of directing it along socially constructive channels. 

t1. Special abilities and mental interaction are indispensable each to the 
other. 


= - a 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. What is genius? 

. What is Galton’s theory of genius? 

. How far do intelligence tests reveal genius? 

. In what sense is genius democratic? 

. What is the relation of special aptitudes to genius? 

. Can the inheritance of special aptitudes be forecasted? 
. What is Lombroso’s theory of genius? 





I AmARW ND 


GENIUS AND TALENT 393 





8. Why is a genius often a social misfit? 

g. What is the Odin-Ward theory of genius? 

10. How is society wasteful of its geniuses? 

11. What advantages does the genius by hard work have that the born 
genius does not possess? 

12. Why must vocational guidance be especially careful in dealing with 
problems of genius? 


PROBLEMS 


1. How far does mental interaction function in the development of 
genius ? 
2. Why is it difficult to predict the appearance of special abilities? 
3. To what error is eugenics subject in treating the question of superior 
ability ? 
4. In what sense is it incorrect to refer to “superior races” and “inferior 
races?” 
5. What serious error does intelligence testing lead to regarding the in- 
heritance of mental ability? 
6. What may the genius do in order to protect himself from becoming 
insane? 
. From becoming a social recalcitrant ? 
. Why must genius be trained in order to attain its highest levels? 
. In what sense may everyone not mentally defective become a genius? 
. What are the two main variables in predicting the maturation of 
special ability? 


OO ON 


Lal 


READINGS 


Davies, G. R., Social Environment (McClurg, 1917), Ch. IV. 

Galton, Frances, Hereditary Genius (Macmillan, 1892). 

Joly, Henri, Psychologie des grands hommes (Paris, 1891). 

Knowlson, T. S., Originality (Lippincott, 1918). 

Lombroso, C., The Man of Genius (London, 1891). 

Odin, Alfred, Genése des grands hommes (Paris, 1895), Tome I. 

Terman, L. M., “A New Approach to the Study of Genius,” Psychological 
Review, July 1922, pp. 310-18. 

Thorndike, E. L., The Original Nature of Man (Teachers College, Co- 
lumbia Univ., 1913). 

Ward, L. F., Applied Sociology (Ginn, 1906), Ch. X. 


CHAPTER XXXIV 
INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 


CONSIDERATION of originality, genius, and special aptitude 

naturally leads to the subjects of invention and discovery as phases 
of leadership. Invention is a concreting of originality and genius. It is 
the tangible evidence of the existence of superior ability; it is also the 
chief product of mental interaction. Invention means “seeing into;” and 
discovery, “coming upon ;” one term emphasizes the subjective phase and 
the other the objective phase of the same process. 

The history of invention and discovery is concerned not with “the 
unoriginal moments of any man’s life, nor with the stolid procession that 
never had a thought of their own,” but with the brightest, happiest, 
creative moments of the most fortunate minds of all races and in part with 
the most beneficent discoveries of mankind.t Invention has occurred in. 
all ages, among all peoples, from the most primitive to the most advanced. 

The place of woman in making early inventions has been overlooked. 
Woman seems to have invented most of the arts. Woman probably 
discovered what herbs were edible, domesticated the cat, taught the dog to 
be a home guardian, discovered that cows and goats could give her 
children nourishing milk, was the first to think of winding reeds to make 
a cradle, wove linen, jute, and wool into body covering or clothes, invented 
baskets to collect the harvest in, was the first to think of firing clay in the 
heat of the sun in order to make bricks, discovered medicinal herbs, 
domesticated the silkworm, found what plants, animals, and methods 
could be utilized in making dyes and colors, and made countless house- 
hold inventions.2 Primitive man’s inventions dealt with the hunting and 
fighting life. They centered at first in weapons, implements, forms of 
barter, and later in business and government. 


INVENTION AND IMAGINATION 


Invention means coming upon, seeing into, and perceiving new relation- 
ships. A person with a number of habitual ideas on a given subject thinks 
*O. T. Mason, Origins of Invention (Scribners, -y10), p. 28. 


mr, G. Lombroso, The Soul of Woman (Dutton, 1923), pp. 148-149. Also see 
O. T. Mason, Origins of Inventions. 


394 


INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 395 


along that line persistently and a new idea in the series “comes to him”+— 
the result is an invention. One thinks about two unrelated sets of ideas 
until at some particular moment a “mental flash” occurs between the two 
lines of thought, the two are correlated—an invention has occurred. 

To see a new relationship is the essence of invention. In ancient 
Babylon, individual characters were stamped upon brick, but it was not 
until centuries later that the simple process of putting the individual 
characters together and of substituting printing for writing was invented. 
According to Herodotus, Cyrus the Great was halted in his attack upon 
Babylon by the massive city walls, until he perceived+a new relationship 
between the physical phenomena of the locality, whereupon he ordered the 
waters of the Euphrates turned aside, and sending his army along the 
river bed and under the walls of the city, he took by surprise the hosts of 
Nebuchadnezzar, who had not anticipated such a stratagem. When 
Heracles undertook the task of cleaning the Augean farmyard where 
3000 oxen had been stabled for thirty years he perceived a new relation- 
ship; namely, that by turning the course of the Alpheus and Peneus rivers 
through the stables, the gigantic task would be accomplished in short 
order. 

Imagination thus functions in invention by enabling one to perceive new 
relationships. Its “visionary” character is its greatest weakness, and its 
greatest strength, for without it no one could penetrate the Unknown 
that encircles, and no one could invent. 


INVENTION AND PROBLEM-SOLVING 


Inventing is problem-solving. Invention arises from personal and 
social needs, from problems, from attempts to extricate one’s self from 
difficulties, from a reasonable degree of worrying. The starting point is 
a problem and its perception. J have seen a hundred students try to 
crowd through a set of double doors where one was closed, without show- 
ing evidences that a problem existed. Sometimes, one of the number, per- 
haps after nearly all the others have crowded through the single door, 
looks about, and unfastens the closed door, thus allowing the remaining 
persons to use the double aperture. In other words, most of us, most 
of the time are blind to many of our problems. We have them, and do not 
know it. The problem and its perception is an initial phase of the inventive 
process. 

The next essential is an attitude of solving problems. Many people 
often would rather adjust themselves to an unsolved difficulty than to 


390 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


ne er 


try to unravel the tangled skein. In this connection the curiosity impulses 
function well. Curiosity culminates in invention; its natural trend is 
toward discovery. It is the inquiring mind which discovers, invents, 
creates. Inquiry, questioning, longing are the antecedents of inventions. 
It is the person who has no questions to ask who rarely invents. Ques- 
tioning, which is so rampant, especially in children, is a precious trait, for 
it precedes invention. It is the inventive mind which is always character- 
ized by problems—problems which incessantly call forth energy and pro- 
duce mental focalization. 

The desire to solve problems is normally followed by the collecting and 
analyzing of data. Scientific invention requires a thorough knowledge 
of all that has been discovered in the field of the given problem or prob- 
lems. It also includes accurate methods of collecting new data, the making 
of theories on the basis of all available knowledge, and the testing of one 


theory after another by careful experimentation until a solution to the - 


specific problem is found. 
In this process the inventor may come upon an entirely unexpected and 
unsought for relationship; the invention, or discovery, may be different 


from the one for which the search is made. In studying an apparatus © 


designed to repeat Morse characters, Mr. Edison was looking for possible 
ways of improving the instrument when his attention was attracted to 
peculiar humming noises. He perceived a resemblance of these sounds to 
the human voice—and caught a vision which led to an unanticipated in- 
vention, the phonograph. Daguerre left an unexposed plate in a cupboard 
and later found that it was developed. He had not expected this result, 
but it led to an unforecasted discovery. He followed the new line of 
development. In the cupboard he found a capsule of mercury, a metal 


which discharges steam at ordinary temperature. He then experimented — 


with underexposed plates and mercury—the daguerreotype was produced. — 


Problem-solving is fundamental to all invention and discovery. A need, — 
a problem; concentration of attention upon the problem, the trial and © 


error method of experimentation ; finally, the expected or the unanticipated 


discovery—such is invention. Hence, the possibility of making useful in- 
ventions is open to almost any energetic mind. 


f 
’ 


It will now be clearer why psychologically there is no essential difference _ 


between inventing and discovering. Consider the discovery of America ; 
first, there was a problem; namely, to travel by direct route to India; then — 
the brilliant theory that Europe was related to or connected with India 
by the Western seas ; the search, the long journey, the steadfast westward © 


gaze, and the holding to the westward course against tremendous odds; 


“Se 


: 
4 


‘ 
> 


INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 397 


finally, land, not India, but a new continent. The process is psychologically 
one with that of inventing. 


THE NATURALNESS OF INVENTION 


“Invention is as natural as imitation.”* Every imitation seems to be 
accompanied by at least a small degree of invention. Since the imitator 
sees life from a somewhat different angle from the initiator, and since 
he has somewhat different habitual reactions, he will unconsciously, if 
not deliberately, incorporate new elements into the process—new elements 
which are fundamental to all invention. Even the mere copying of the 
acts of another person is influenced by the personal equation of the 
imitator. It is almost impossible for one person to copy exactly the 
handwriting of another, except by diligent, painstaking, and concentrated 
effort. Hence invention and imitation are opposite poles of the same 
phenomenon; every imitation results in at least a slight modification or 
invention, and every invention leads to widespread imitation. 

Inventing begins early in life. As soon as the child starts talking, he 
begins language invention. He names (a process of invention) his parents 
and himself (pa pa, ma ma, ba ba). He is alive with new and original 
potentialities. Parents and teachers have their minds set upon standardiz- 
ing him, but in the necessary disciplining, the parent and even the teacher 
often neglect to study and to encourage his inventive ability. The unique 
phases of his personality are likely to receive no special attention unless 
they take the form of obstreperousness and recalcitrancy, and then, in most 
cases he receives repressive treatment. 

On the other hand, scientific methods are developing, and special abilities 
are being diagnosed and stimulated. For example: 


A public school teacher could do nothing with a small Italian boy who was 
unruly beyond description. The principal helplessly gave up the boy as not 
amenable to discipline and turned him over to a “special school.” There the 
teacher quietly watched the newcomer when he was playing in the school yard. 
His special ability to sing expressed itself before the first day was over, and 
the wayward youth that same day played truant, singing for pay to older 
admirers in the new special school neighborhood. The special school teacher 
learned of these facts, and the next morning on the playground, without 
making reference to the previous day’s truancy, asked: “Tony, can you sing 
anything from the Italian operas?” and in response, Tony sang La donna e 
mobile. “Would you like to take some music lessons?” asked the teacher. 
With tears quickly welling into his previously defiant eyes, his heart melted 
and his mind leaped with the flash and fire of a new enthusiasm—and yet an 


*J. M. Baldwin, The Individual and Society (Badger, 1911), p. 149. 


398 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


mR I TT as LN Mbit RPRcaena Svea eN Soc 0) eerie 


enthusiasm as old as the Italian race. He caused no more trouble to the school, 
and more important, his ability to reproduce, even to create art, and hence to 
invent, received recognition and effective stimulation. 


In hearing new words and terms, the child commonly invents meanings 
for them. When he wrongly interprets something, he is apt to be scolded 
by his parents, who fail to see that what is a mistake to them is an 
invention by the child and that they may be repressing what is most 
creative in the child. The little girl who upon seeing a homely yellow 
cat, said: “There goes an orange meow,” had made a crude and simple 
‘nvention of terms. The child who wanted to be tucked into bed at night 
and said: “Tighten me up on both sides, Daddy,” expressed in her own 
way an inaccurate but new connection of activities. In standardizing 
children there is danger of neglecting the inventiveness that crops out as 
naturally as does imitativeness. This danger lurks everywhere, from the 
methods of parental disciplining to the habit of some university instructors — 
who grade high the students who simply memorize everything that the 
instructors expound. 

Activity, initiative, assertion produce innovations. The activity ex- 
pended in satisying some desire or in securing an answer to some prob- 
lem of the hour may have an important by-product in invention. Effort 
leads naturally to invention, especially if it be persistent and concentrated. 

While invention may be as natural as imitation, it is immeasurably more 
difficult. The inventor frequently finds himself facing a stone wall, and 
it is only by faithful, concentrated effort in what seems at times as hope- 
less and endless experimenting that problems are solved and inventions 
made. Long, persistent mental effort is commonly the price of a worth- 
while invention; the lazy rarely initiate and invent. Almost all prominent 
inventors have been indefatigable workers. To invent is natural, but it 
requires labor. 


THE INVENTIVE ATMOSPHERE 


Invention is “catching.” The spirit of invention spreads and inventive 
enthusiasm runs high, providing of course that intellectual activity pre- 
vails. Invention is easily multiplied by an inventive atmosphere. 

Nations experience inventive epochs. An age of fashion, as opposed to 
one of custom, represents inventive craze as well as imitative craze. Be- 
hind countless superficial fashions is the spirit of invention, and out of 
the process a few worthy inventions are produced. 

About the year 1500 there was a number of land discoveries—dis- 
covering land became the fashion. Land discoveries flocked together. 


INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 399 


Since about I915 an important series of air-transportation inventions have 
been made. Since 1920 radio inventions have followed one another in 
quick succession. One air-transportation or radio invention stimulates 
countless individuals to inventive efforts, and thus new records in these 
fields are continually being made. 

The inventive atmosphere is largely created by social stimulation, A 
whole nation can pass into a social stupor, and individuals be put to 
sleep by social inertia, living and dying without becoming aware of needs 
which can be met by invention; on the other hand, social activity and 
recognition promote the inventive spirit. Social satisfaction and stagna- 
tion kill inventiveness; social recognition and rewards promote in- 
ventiveness. 

Notice how business and large-scale industry have eagerly sought 
material inventions, and how in consequence inventions in these fields have 
overshadowed all others. Recognition of artistic ability in our country 
comes tardily, and creative art as a result has been held back. Invention 
and creativeness in any people respond to social stimulation. 


INVENTION AND NECESSITY 


Necessity, it is popularly said, is the mother of invention. By virtue 
of circumstances Robinson Crusoe became an inventor. Many a phleg- 
matic and unimaginative person has found himself in situations where he 
was obliged to invent. Exhaustion of productive lands compelled experi- 
mentation in dry farming and irrigation. An ultimate scarcity of crude 
oils will force the invention of a substitute for gasoline as a source of 
power for driving automobiles, and then of a substitute for the gasoline 
engine. 

In all these cases it may be remembered that the “necessity” principle 
can operate only because the basic inventions have already been made. 
No degree of necessity could have produced the wagon until the wheel 
had appeared. No invention on any particular level of complexity can 
be made until the “underlying cultural base” has been built up.* 


INVENTION AND MODIFICATION 


Invention is modification. Nearly all new ideas and appliances which 
reach the United States Patent Office are classified as improvements. In 
other words, an invention is usually a projection from a group of older 
inventions. 

‘W.F. Ogburn, Social Change (Huebsch, 1922), p. 83. 


400 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


ee 





The invention of the steam engine was not made in its entirety in 
1769 by James Watt; neither did it take place on the day that the attention 
of Watt was centered on tlie rising and falling lid of the tea-kettle. The 
invention of the steam engine goes back to the eolipile > made by Hero of 
Alexandria in the second century, B. C., to a type of steam windmill that 
was worked out by G. Branca about 1629, to the steam apparatus which 
was manufactured by the Marquis of Worcester in 1663, to the applica- 
tion of steam power to various kinds of machines by Thomas Savery about 
1700, to Papin’s idea of the piston, to Newcomen’s piston engine, a model 
of which Watt was repairing when in 1763 he set to work to eliminate the 
waste of steam due to alternate chilling and heating of the cylinder. 
With this problem in mind, Watt worked for six years before he had per- 
fected the separate condenser in 1769, the date at which it is popularly 
said that the steam engine was invented. This invention, therefore, in- 
volved more than the observation of a tea-kettle; it included countless im-. 
provements and modifications that had been made by many persons 
throughout a long period of time, and was itself a modification or im- 
provement. 

The modifications which constitute inventions are of three classes: (1) 
Natural evolutions, (2) transformations, and (3) marked deviations.° 
Qualitatively, this order represents an ascending scale. The differences 
are chiefly of degree. As a result of the increasing difficulty that is in- 
volved, this schedule constitutes numerically, a decreasing scale. 

1. Inventions that are natural evolutions of previously discovered re- 
lationships are the easiest to make and the most common. To change a 
gourd into a receptacle for carrying water, to use a stone as a weapon, 
to change a cave into a cave-house, or to give a slant to perpendicular 
windshields—these are natural evolutions. They range from innumerable 
small changes, scarcely worthy to be called inventions, to genuine trans- 
formations. 

2. Some inventions are complex combinations of known relationships, 
and the results are transformations of the constituent elements. To 
connect a bucket and a rope with a wheel for the purpose of drawing | 
water from a well, to attach a foot lever to a spinning wheel so as to- 
change the immediate source of power and free the hand, or to put pneu- — 
matic tubes on wheels; these illustrate inventions which are transfor-— 
mations. i 


° An instrument illustrating the expansive force of steam generated in a closed 
vessel, and escaping by a narrow aperture. Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia. | 
_*See the extended discussion of this theme by F. Paulhan, Psychologie de linven- 
tion (Paris, 1895), Livre II. i 


ee 


INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 401 


3. Marked deviations from current knowledge and skill are the highest 
forms which invention takes. They involve the recognition of relation- 
ships apparently unconnected. They range up into the most brilliant 
findings, conceptions, and creations of geniuses. The invention of the 
cipher, the discovery of fire, the application of steam to machinery, the 
making of an instrument for transmitting and reproducing human speech 
between points miles apart, the conception that the earth is round, the 
creation of a new national or a world epic; such are a few examples of 
marked deviations. For fifteen cents Browning bought a dry-as-dust 
report of a Roman murder trial of 1689. Under his inventive touch this 
report was changed into ten poems, “each giving a different view of the 
case but all based upon the same fundamental facts.’”’ The product was 
The Ring and the Book." 

The distinction between empirical invention and projected invention is 
important.* The first is “perfected in use;” the second is thought out 
abstractly before it is made objectively and concretely. Nearly all leading 
inventions today are first planned out and then tried out. J. M. Browning 
is credited with planning in all their details his two main types of machine 
guns, not in the shop, but in the desert, deliberately, without even putting 
pencil to paper. Plato’s Republic is another form of projected invention, 
a large scale attempt to project a new organization of society. 

One of the difficulties regarding projected inventions of societary forms 
is that of getting them fairly tested. Dr. Bernard suggests: 


If any group of people, such as those of North Dakota or Russia or some 
colony of economic or social enthusiasts, are willing to subject themselves to 
the rigor of an experiment in trying out (such) theories of social revision or 
invention, it might properly be regarded as the sensible procedure for the 
rest of the world to feel grateful to them for trying the experiment, thus 
testing the workability of the theory. By saving us the trouble of making the 
test, they are doing us a favor instead of being our enemies.” 


THE INVENTION CYCLE 


Inventions are cyclical; that is, an ordinary invention passes through a 
cycle of existence. Tarde has recognized three stages in such a cycle— 
an incline, a plateau, and a decline.*° 

(1) The incline is often very gradual. Inventions are sometimes ac- 


™E. E. Slosson and June E. Downey, Plots and Personalities (Century, 1923), 
p. 105. 

®L. L. Bernard, “Invention and Progress,” Amer. Jour. of Sociology, XXIII: 16 ff. 

*Tbid., p. 28. 

” The Laws of Imitation (Holt, 1903), pp. 126, 158, 174. 


402 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


cepted with great reluctance and after long delays. The first steam en- 
gine, traveling at the fearful rate of ten or fifteen miles an hour was long 
considered by many people a work of the devil. The automobile has 
received readier acceptance. The steepness of the incline of common adop- 
tion depends upon the nature and the number of prejudices which must 
be vanquished and upon the quality of social interaction that is prevalent. 
A book that is far “ahead of the age” in which it appears will likely 
remain unaccepted during the life-time of the author. Beethoven died al- 
most unknown. Mendel’s laws of heredity were not recognized until 
forty years after their discovery. 

(2) The plateau of an invention may be short or long, depending upon 
its usefulness and the nature of the mental interaction of the times. A 
“best seller’? may remain such for only one month or it may continue 
such for twenty months. The bicycle enjoyed a short-lived popularity, 


because of the perfecting of the more serviceable automobile. The sailing: 


vessel occupied first place for centuries as a means of ocean transportation 
—until the steamboat demonstrated its commercial utility. 

(3) The decline may be abrupt, gradual, or extended over so many 
centuries as to be scarcely noticeable, or be swallowed up in the incline 
and plateau of a more complex and useful invention. As a rule the decline 
is gently sloping, for an invention that is widely adopted acquires the 
sanction of custom and convention and hence holds on with tenacity long 
after it has been superseded in serviceability by another invention. Inven- 
tions tend to become encased in the feelings and habits, and to outlive 
their usefulness. Superstitions are marked by a long drawn out and 
greatly attenuated decline. Occasionally, however, an invention is made, 
such as a new machine or a new industrial process, and established ma- 
chines and processes are discarded suddenly. 

There are many inventions which live on in slightly modified form, 
such as the ethical teachings of the New Testament, the metric system, 
the dress suit, the idea that the earth is spherical. Others survive as parts 
of new and better inventions, such as the wheel—in the wheelbarrow, the 
wagon, the automobile, the watch. 


CUMULATIVE NATURE OF INVENTION 


Inventions are cumulative ; they lead to further inventing. Every valu- ) 


able invention releases possibilities of further invention. Each is a cna 


base for one, two, or more new inventions. Each is a call to some one _ 


to make further inventions. Inventions lead to inventions; they come inl 


INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 403 


droves. They are not entirely sporadic, but follow one another in rough 
sequences. 

Inventing may become habitual with certain individuals, for it is a 
process of concentrating one’s psychic energy in a certain way toward 
certain goals. To look for new relationships in fields that one has mas- 
tered, and succeeded in once, twice, or more times, tends to create habits 
of seeing new relationships and thus of inventing. Thinking impulses may 
be organized in blind acceptance-habits, or of alert inquiring-habits. It 
is the latter that are basic to inventive habits, and which in turn create 
life occupations that are not easily forsaken. Edison will not volun- 
tarily retire from inventing. Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, at the time of 
his death, was at work on a new invention; namely, a device whereby a 
pilgrim lost in a desert might save himself from dying of thirst by dis- 
tilling water from his own breath. 

The objective succession of inventions and discoveries is far from 
being accidental. America could hardly have been discovered by Euro- 
peans through conscious planning until the idea had been conceived that 
the earth is round. The sailing vessel could not have been invented before 
the boat; cooking processes, before the discovery of fire; the watch spring, 
before steel. An author makes use of words and ideas that have been 
discovered by others. He reads omnivorously and contacts other literary 
people, thus familiarizing himself with all the literary ideas and inventions 
of the past and present. Upon the basis of all these inventions he goes 
ahead trying himself out at some new undertaking, and writes a new 
book, or composes a new poem, and in so doing adds to the world’s stock 
of literary inventions. There is a logic, therefore, of inventions as well 
as of argumentation. | 

No invention is complete and final. Every invention presages others. 
An invention is a potential parent of generations of unborn inventions. 
The pressure upon the truly imaginative, thoughtful person to invent is 
insistent. Persons are called, it would seem, to be joint creators with the 
Great Creator. 


SOCIAL NEUTRALITY OF INVENTION 


Inventions are socially neutral. They may destroy or reconstruct social 
relationships. Most new chemical discoveries can be used to human ad- 
vantage or disadvantage. The invention of gunpowder, nitro-glycerine, 
TNT, may be made the servants or the destroyers of mankind. The print- 
ing press is an instrument for carrying the best socialized teachings of the 
New Testament around the world, or to disseminate filth, The telephone 


404 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 

PR A SW OTe NAR SER SG NS 
transmits lies or truth without discrimination. An aeroplane may carry 
food to dying children or bombs to blow them to bits. 

Material inventions are usually socially neutral, and hence their social 
value depends on the attitudes of the people who control their use. As 
material inventions increase, more and more powerful weapons thus are 
available for the use of evil-minded persons. The need for inventions 
that will stimulate socialized conduct and make it universal is imperative 
as material invention advances. There is danger of creating more power- 
ful material inventions than we can control socially and spiritually. ‘With 
every new advance in material inventions a concomitant advance is neces- 
sary in the field of socialized and spiritualized control of all inventions. 
If technical invention will ultimately “transform all mechanical work into 
supervision,” then the need for the invention of a technique of socialized 
supervision is all-important. 


INVENTION AND CIVILIZATION 


Civilization is an invention. We live in a world of inventions. Through 
imitation, inventions are disseminated. Nearly all the elements of com- 
munication and social interaction are human inventions. Every word in 
this book is the invention of some one. The chair in which you are 
sitting; the pictures upon the walls; the clothes you wear; the building 
which houses you; food, from the rolled oats or puffed wheat in the 
morning to the Neapolitan ice cream of the evening dinner are inventions. 
In eating, your hands and mouth are busy with inventions. The auto- 
mobile, the office, the telephone, the radio, the newspaper, the church 
service, the marriage ceremony, Leybach’s Fifth Nocturne—all are in- 
ventions. We live and move and have our being in a world of invention. 

Civilization is a synthesis of inventions. How many invented processes 
are combined in the fountain pen or the typewriter with which we work, 
or in the radio to which we listen. Consider the combination of inven- 
tions in a baseball game. Who can disentangle and write the history of 
the inventions in the Constitution of the United States, in Shakespeare’s 
Hamlet, or in the Bible. 

Everything and every idea seem to bear the injunction: Let us invent. 
Educational systems have stressed imitative and copying processes, but 
scarcely tapped the possibilities of stimulating invention. Activity, initia- 
tive, inter-stimulation, focalization, invention, creation—this is the supreme 
logic of mental interaction. 


INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 405 


THE EVOLUTION OF INVENTION 


Inventions appear in human history on four main levels. In primitive 
groups the chief struggle is “to outwit nature.’ The Eskimos “must use 
the cunning of their eyes and their hands to convert animal life into the 
coin of the realm—food and fuel. The process makes them uncannily in- 
ventive. Out of apparent nothingness they create the necessities of life 
and a few luxuries.” In these words from the story of Nanook of the 
North'the lowest levels of invention are noted. 

In the second level man is engaged chiefly in outwitting his fellow men. 
His inventions are those of securing egoistic control. He seeks leadership 
patterns for manipulating his fellows to his own advantage, and to “lord 
it” over his fellows. 

Then, comes the level of inventions for securing group control. <A 
person invents culture patterns whereby his group may rule other groups. 
Business groups seek to dominate in the nation, and nation groups struggle 
against one another for international control, but for purposes of group 
gain and power. 

A fourth level now emerging is that of inventing means of serving 
without expectation of gain or reward. Patterns of conduct of this 
order are not yet well established, and are not easily recognized by most 
people, chiefly because they are living on one or more of the three lower 
levels of invention. Patterns of wholesome and stimulating cooperative 
efforts on a large scale are rare. A large expansion of inventions on this 
level is greatly needed. 


PRINCIPLES 


1. Inventing is tangible evidence of inherited or acquired special abilities. 

2. Inventing means seeing new relationships. 

3. Imagination functions in inventions by depicting problems and possible 
solutions for them. 

4. Inventing is problem-solving. 

5. It is as natural to invent as to imitate, although the latter process is 
more difficult and less common. 

6. Inventing is “catching,” in the sense that one invention is a stimulus 
to make other inventions. 

7. Invention sometimes results from necessity, if the cultural base for the 
specific invention has already been built up. 


406 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 

pe eae er Ee Noe ee) ee en me 

8 Most inventions are modifications of previously made inventions ; 
they are either natural evolutions, transformations, or marked 
deviations. 

g. Inventions tend to run through cycles, which include an incline, pla- 
teau, and decline. 

10, Inventions are cumulative, being built up step by step. 

11. Inventions are socially neutral. 

12. When material inventions tend to outrun spiritual ones, civilization 
is in grave danger. 

13. Civilization is a composite of inventions. 

14. The highest type of inventing is in the field of socialized processes. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. What is invention? 

Is inventive ability innate or acquired? 

How is imagination related to invention? 

In what way are inventions sometimes accidental ? 

- What is the relation of invention to discovering ¢ 

If it is natural to invent, why do we not invent more than we do? 

How early in life does invention begin ¢ 

What is meant by an inventive atmosphere? 

9. When does necessity fail to lead to invention? 

10. Explain: Inventions are modifications. 

11. What is an invention cycle? 

12. What is meant by the social neutrality of inventions? 

13. How may an excess of material inventions over spiritual inventions 
be dangerous to society? 

14. Explain: Civilization is invention. 


OI ANA wh A 


PROBLEMS i 

Mi 

. Can you name anything that you daily use which is not an invention P 

. Why are so many persons who have made inventions unknown to us? 
. Explain: The time is ripe for an invention. 

. Explain: There are few persons who are fully qualified to use in 

ventions. 
5. Can you name an invention which is not used both for and against 
human welfare? 







hw NH 


INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 407 


6. If Edison had lived as a native of Central Africa, what would have 
been the nature of his inventions ? 

7. Why are inventions characterized by cycles? 

8. Describe the probable mental process which immediately preceded the 
invention of the bow and arrow. 

9g. How far can inventions be predicted? 

10. What is the relation of invention to social interaction? 

11. “Is it true that every invention opens up avenues for new forms of 
dishonesty ?” 

12. Distinguish between invention and leadership. 

13. Name an important invention that is greatly needed at the present 
time. 

14. Why were more inventions made in the nineteenth century than in 
all previous centuries combined ? 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Baldwin, J. M., Social and Ethical Interpretations (Macmillan, 1906), 
hsb lleva 

The Individual and Society (Badger, 1911), Ch. V. 

Bernard, L. L., “Invention and Progress,’ Amer. Jour. of Sociology, 
XXIIT: 1-33. 

Knowlson, T. S., Originality (Lippincott, 1918). 

Mach, E., “On the Part Played by Accident in Invention and Discovery.” 
Montst: 161-175. 

Mason, O. T., The Origins of Invention (Scribners, 1910). 

Paulhan, F., Psychologie de l’invention (Paris, 1895). 

Tanner, Amy E., “Certain Social Aspects of Invention,’ Amer. Jour. of 

| Psychology, 26: 388-416. 

Tarde, Gabriel, La Logique sociale (Paris, 1895), Ch. IV. 

The Laws of Imitation (Holt, 1903), Ch. V. 

Taussig, Frank W., Inventors and Money Makers (Macmillan, 1915), 
Chev loll 

Thomas, W. I., Source Book for Social Origins (Univ. of Chicago Press, 
1909), Part III. 

Todd, A. J., Theories of Social Progress (Macmillan, 1918), Ch. X. 

Ward, L. F., Psychic Factors in Civilization (Ginn, 1906), Chs. XXVII, 
XXXII. 

Applied Sociology (Ginn, 1916), Part II. 

Pure Sociology (Macmillan, 1914), Chs. XVIII, XIX, 














408 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





Wissler, Clark, The American Indian (Oxford Univ. Press, 1922), Ch. 
VIII. 

“Relation of Culture to Environment from the Standpoint of 

Invention,’ Pop. Sci. Mon., LXXXIII: 164-68. 





“ae 


CHAPTER XXXV 
MENTAL LEADERSHIP 


N important phase of intersocial stimulation is leadership. In 

primitive, feudal, and monarchical societies, a relatively few people 
in any group exercised arbitrary control, but in modern days there has 
been a marked expansion of leadership opportunities, which, together with 
the extension of educational advantages, is democratizing leadership. In 
this chapter it is proposed to deal more with the specific mental phases 
of the subject; and in the next chapters with the social aspects. In this 
chapter, of course, the social elements will repeatedly come to the surface; 
and in the following the psychic factors will be often referred to—for 
there can be no separation of the two. 


BASES OF LEADERSHIP 


The bases of leadership are found in many of the qualities which have 
been discussed in preceding chapters. The self-assertive impulses which 
become organized into the desire for recognition and power are important. 
It is probable that everyone not mentally defective has enough initiative, 
original “urges,” assertiveness, which if properly stimulated and trained, 
would result in leadership, at least to some small degree. This is an 
assumption that may be accepted until disproved. 

A child with a reticent disposition, whose self-assertive impulses are 
weak or are not developed, early forms an inferiority complex. If he is 
especially sensitive he may falsely imagine that other persons are passing 
unfavorable judgments on him or making fun of him, or he may take 
the ridicule of others much more seriously than it is intended. He may 
let others lead the way so often that he reaches the conclusion that he is 
inferior in type and cannot be a leader. Thus a person develops an 
evaluation of himself as a weakling, a born follower, and so forth. He 
scarcely dares “‘to say that his soul is his own.” 

Slavery developed an inferiority complex in a whole repressed group; 
so also the patriarchal family system. Where either parent is excessively 
assertive, the other tends to develop an inferiority complex, or else an 


intolerable situation arises, ending in separation or divorce. A strong 
409 


410 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


INN ESERIES Po TUE GN OO Oe eta cd OU eel 
parental type may unwittingly produce an inferiority complex on the 
part of one or more children.in the family. In fact, whenever assertiveness 
is found in a social relationship, individuals of a reticent disposition are 
likely to be repressed, to rate themselves too low, and develop an inferior- 
ity complex, leading to a false status of habitual followership, rather than 
to leadership. 

There is a false and a true inferiority complex. Many persons easily 
underestimate their abilities and acquire a false impression of inferiority. 
Because such persons get the idea that they cannot do certain things, they 
cannot do them. They may have fine leadership ability in some lines but 
have come to a false conclusion because of the unscientific attitudes of 
other persons who seriously or in fun have been repressive. The true 
inferiority complex refers to the situation when a person’s leadership 
possibilities are less than normal, and he knows it. 

The superiority complex may represent a fairly accurate estimate of . 
one’s self, or it may be an inflated estimate. The latter, being a false 
product of social interaction, is apt to collapse in the form of personal 
failures. The false estimate may be caused by the undue attention that the 
given individual has received. 

Habit also produces a superiority complex. A child in being chosen to 
lead and in responding a few times soon comes to act the part of a leader 
habitually and without discriminating between situations. He develops a 
leadership technique which he tends to use in all his social contacts. 
Moreover, his fellows habitually call upon him to lead, which still further 
strengthens his superiority complex. 

The exercise of leadership power is somewhat intoxicating. It seems to 
create desires for more recognition and power, which being won, inflates — 
the ego. Soon, short cuts to power are sought, arbitrary methods are ~ 
resorted to and a false superiority complex becomes established. 

Opulence, a position of social prominence, or an atmosphere of class 
privilege, develops false superiority complexes, even in those who do 
nothing except to live upon the earnings of others and submit to a_ 
“meaningless round” of bridge parties and afternoon teas. The social ; 
heritage of the privileged tends to form superiority complexes. k 

Similarly, the defeated classes of society suffer from inferiority com- } 
plexes, but some of their members remonstrate and stimulate a revolution- — 
ary spirit. Among the privileged, however, it is rarely that anyone rebels” 
against a superiority class status. The blindness of the exalted, despite 
greater opportunities for thought and vision, is often as pitiful as the y 
humility of the suppressed and weak, 





MENTAL LEADERSHIP 4Il 


Marginal uniqueness, as outlined in a previous chapter,’ is a basis 
of leadership, because it sets persons off from their fellows, and enables 
each to do one or more things better than his fellows are doing them. 
Inquisitiveness is necessary to leadership, for it is the inquiring mind 
which obtains the background of knowledge and experience that is common 
to leaders. A social imagination likewise is helpful, for its possessor 
thereby “puts himself” into the experiences, problems, and attitudes of 
other persons and thus comes to understand them. A socialized imagina- 
tion is still better, for it habitually “puts one into the positions” of others 
for the purpose of serving them, without expecting something in return 
and without taking advantage of this understanding of others. 

A fine physique is essential for certain types of leadership and helpful in 
all, because in the processes of social interaction the group oftentimes 
falsely identifies size and ability. As a substitute for a tall stature, 
Napoleon appeared before his soldiers on a horse. It was found by E. B. 
Gowin that the executives of insurance companies are taller in stature than 
the average person who holds an insurance policy, that bishops are taller 
than the rank and file of clergymen, university presidents than presidents 
of small colleges, city superintendents than principals in small towns, 
sales managers than salesmen, railroad presidents than station agents.? 
When the group ranks a tall man superior to a short man it is confusing 
size with mental ability. Mental ability which produces leadership is 
found as frequently in small or short people as in tall or large persons, 
and hence size as such cannot be considered a leadership asset except as 
it is coupled with endurance or as it is valuable for certain types of 
leaders such as policemen, and so forth. 

Physical energy and endurance are more important fundamentals than 
size or height, for they enable mental ability to function continuously. 
They support mental ability well in times of crisis. They more than 
compensate for lack of stature. In the long run they enable a person to 
make a record of achievement which causes the group to forget the per- 
son’s physical handicaps. 

Mental energy and its focalization is a more consequential element 
in leadership than physical energy. In the clash of mind with mind 
superior psychical qualities assert themselves. It is unfortunate, however, 


*Chapter XXXII. i 

"These leaders also weigh more than average individuals, but they are un- 
doubtedly better fed and better cared for physically—circumstances which partially 
explain the greater weight, and are a result as well as a cause. See E. B. Gowin, 
The Executive and his Control of Men (Macmillan, 1915), which contains con- 
siderable data upon leadership of the executive type. 


412 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 

rn ah OR 
that modern social interaction overstimulates countless persons of fine 
psychical energy, transforming them into mental automatons. Pity 
rather than praise is justly accorded the college “grind,” or the business 
man who sacrifices health for financial success. “I work fifteen hours a 
day,” proudly asserts an able physician, but later finds himself the victim 
of nervous and physical exhaustion and unable to enjoy the fruits of his 
achievements. 

Confidence in one’s ability is a factor in leadership. To lead well one 
must feel confident that he can measure up to the occasion, or else his fol- 
lowers will quickly sense his wavering and become fearful. To rely on 
confidence chiefly or unduly to puff up one’s confidence is also fatal. 
Circumstances will easily deflate a leader’s over-confidence and generally 
undermine his leadership prestige. Many persons, on the other hand, 
feel that they cannot lead, and fail to lead from want of trying. Encour- 


agement from friends together with being given an increasing degree of 


responsibility and a growing self-confidence transforms many 2 timid 
person into a fit leader. 

Whatever destroys confidence is fatal. While over-confidence begets 
disaster, under-confidence stifles latent abilities. Hence the need of 
deliberate social stimulation as a means of bringing unsuspected leadership 
possibilities into operation. An unadvertised confidence is the best for 
it drives a person forward without attracting jealous or distrustful atten- 
tion to him. 

Intelligence tests have graded individuals regarding one main phase of 
personal activity. Oftentimes, the findings of these tests have been taken 
as final indications of leadership ability. Achievement and will-tempera- 
ment tests are significant but these have not been developed far. Leader- 
ship tests, as such, are needed. If they should show positive gradations 
of leadership capacity, such findings are likely to be falsely interpreted. 

It is hard to see how tests of this kind can discover potential leadership 
ability under unforeseen circumstances. As hydrogen and oxygen when 
put together in certain proportions produce a liquid with wholly new 
properties, so under the stimuli of a new crisis a person may manifest 
totally unsuspected leadership qualities, which no tests could measure 
beforehand. 

Tests and ratings encourage persons to rest upon their oars. Those 


who rate high will feel satisfied with themselves, while those of “average” — 
or little ability, feeling hopeless, will not develop their latent abilities. If — 
they do not grade high, they still have enough possibilities, which if fully — 





MENTAL LEADERSHIP 413 





stimulated and given proper opportunity may eventuate into leadership of 
no mean character. 

Painstaking forethought builds leadership ability. The following ex- 
cerpt from the biography of a college student is a case in point: 


J desired to become a public speaker and so upon entering college he 
applied to and was received into membership in a debating society. He did 
not stop with taking his place on the program once every six weeks according 
to his turn. He prepared for every debate so that whenever one of the regular 
participants did not appear at the weekly meetings and a volunteer was called 
for, he was ready for the emergency, and soon became recognized as a 
debater of merit. The next year, as a sophomore, he “made” the university 
debating team, although at the beginning of his freshman year he was an 
untrained and green debater. 





A successful general foresees all the possible attacks of the enemy and 
hence is rarely taken by surprise. A wise public leader in any field postu- 
lates the possible ambushes, the various chances of defeat, and prepares 
beforehand to meet them. He is “not caught at a loss for information, nor 
taken by surprise.” One who thus sees into the future better than others 
do has acquired superior leadership ability. A seer is a leader who “‘sees 
farther” and more accurately than his fellows, but these are traits that 
arise chiefly out of experience, knowledge, and imagination. Note the 
following reactions of a successful business man, Franklin Remington: 


If I were a stenographer, a clerk, or an office assistant in a big company, and 
had ambitions to become an important executive of it, I would study that 
business from the ground roots up. I would learn every last detail of the 
domestic markets. If supplies came from foreign countries, or any of the 
finished products were sold in them, I would learn the histories of those 
countries, the business and social customs of their peoples, and whatever else 
was available in the line of general information. In short, I would see that 
I was better informed on some things, at least, than the head of my depart- 
ment or the head of the business. Sooner or later, when some question was 
under discussion, I would be in a position to volunteer information that would 
surprise him. Nothing more surely attracts an executive’s attention to an 
employee than to learn from that employee something that the executive didn’t 
know himself.’ 


A variety of interests may help to multiply leadership ability. Be for 
many things, Franklin K. Lane once wrote,* because by so doing you 
increase the possibilities of developing well-balanced judgments. A per- 
son in any vocation needs to support and balance himself by developing 
several important avocational activities. The specialist, in other words, is 


® American Magazine, XCIV: 16 ff. PAS 
“Letters of Franklin K. Lane (Houghton Mifflin, 1922), p. 4. 


414 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





always in danger of exaggerating the importance of his work, and of 
failing to see it in its proper relationship to al! human activities, but a pro- 
gram of several interests will safeguard him against a bigoted leadership. 
The leader who has one interest only is apt to take an unduly critical 
attitude toward persons with other interests, and sooner or later develop 
into a cynic. 

Power of inhibition is vital. The true leader holds himself in reserve 
for emergency purposes, if for no other reason. He maintains self-control ; 
he remains calm in social crises. Under strain of modern social life with 
its unending demands, many of a trivial nature, one must constantly 
inhibit impulses in order to concentrate properly on a few activities. 
Lester F. ‘Ward did not strive for popularity, for he felt that he “could 
never accomplish the work he had laid out for himself if he allowed the 
social element to enter too largely into his life.’> In an additional state- 


ment Mrs. Cape says that she does not believe “there ever lived a soul that 


practiced inhibition more than he did.’”® Of himself, Ward says that to 
inhibition he attributed most of his success. “Character is made up of 
all the moral qualities, and inhibition is the one perhaps most essential 
to genius.’’ By inhibition one may own his own mind and become a 
leader. 

The leader succeeds better than others in overcoming obstacles. He 
masters difficulties before which his companions quail. What others say 
cannot be done he does. Booker T. Washington whose leadership illustrates 
the point once said: “I have learned that success is to be measured not 
so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles 
which he has overcome while trying to succeed.”® 

The leader is emanatory. He throws out one idea or suggestion after 
another. His followers turn to him for new ideas and proposals as plants 
turn toward the sun for light and heat. He sends forth programs to be 
carried out, and because of their applicability they are widely adopted. 
Francis E. Clark, or “Father” Clark, the founder of the United Society of 
Christian Endeavor, at the organization of the society established the prac- 


tice of announcing a new two-year world program at each biennial con- — 
vention. By the time one program was being completed, another was on — 


its way to the ends of the earth. Such a method requires constant study 
and counseling; it is creative, and it almost automatically establishes 
leader-follower situations. In general, it requires the leader to set ex- 


*Emily P. Cape, Lester F. Ward (Putnam, 1922), p. 60. 
* Ibid., p. 61. 

"Tbid., p. 92. 

*Up from Slavery (Doubleday, Page: 1901), p. 30. 


ee ee ee, 





MENTAL LEADERSHIP 41s 


amples of activity as well as to suggest ideas. Without activity practical 
ideas are not apt to be forthcoming. Without it, also, followers do not 
usually possess the dash and vim as well as the persistence that they do 
when the leader exemplifies his ideas in action. After leadership prestige 
has been established, then the leader may cut down the frequency of his 
appearance “on the front lines.” 

Achievement is fundamental to leadership. ‘“The chieftain in the clan 
or tribe was given the place of honor, because of his ability to do what 
his followers could not do.” Romanoff, the wrestler, was once described 
as a man of “a thousand holds;” that is, he had a thousand ways of 
achieving a certain goal. The person who does something better than I 
do is my leader in that respect. Achieving means experience, technique, 
and if repeated an habitual and hence dependable leadership. 

Organizing ability multiplies a leader’s effectiveness. In order to arouse 
individuals in support of a new cause, it is necessary to formulate plans of 
organization, to analyze the abilities of each individual, and to see that each 
seeks and finds his proper place in the organized whole—these traits are 
peculiarly essential to executive and administrative leaders. 

Merely to build a powerful machine, however, is not enough, for such 
a procedure leads to a form of aristocracy if not of autocracy. The best 
leader is one “who makes his associates great.’ By this method he may 
perpetuate ideas and personality in the most dynamic ways known to man. 
A true leader builds his personality into the lives of others and thus 
achieves a multiple immortality. 

Mental flexibility is vital to leadership. The leader is one who is “old 
enough to have assimilated the work of his predecessors, but not so old as 
to have lost the ardor and flexibility of youth.’ Mental habits and atti- 
tudes, as stated in an earlier chapter,® are not wholly determined by 
physical age. The best way to maintain mental flexibility is found by 
establishing wholesome contacts with the young, by entering into their 
life and interactions as one of them. A youthful attitude cannot be kept 
except by functioning in the mental interactions of youth. 

Mental versatility multiplies leadership possibilities. The versatility of 
Roosevelt has often been remarked, while Herbert Hoover’s aptitude for 
versatility has also been frequently commented upon. Note the following 
observation concerning President Harding’s cabinet: 


What Mr. Hughes does not know about international affairs—and that is 
considerable—Mr. Hoover does. What Mr. Mellon does not know about 
foreign finance—that is less—Mr. Hoover does. What Mr. Davis does not 


* Chapter IV, on “Habitual Nature.” 


416 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
iain Masenanar sine tinst » WEA ist Laetiad evn RE 2) LCN MERA RONEN RRA 


know about labor—and that is everything—Mr. Hoover does. What Mr. 
Wallace does not know about farm marketing—and that is nothing—Mr, 
Hoover does. ; 

Herbert Hoover is the most useful supplement of the administration. He 
possesses a variety of experiences, gained in making money abroad, in ad- 
ministering the Belgian relief, in husbanding the world’s food supply after 
our entrance into the War, in helping write the peace treaty, which no one 
else equals.” 


In this analysis of mental leadership the importance of inheritance has 
been ever evident; likewise, in every instance, intersocial stimulation has 
functioned. The two, heredity and social stimulation, explain leadership. 


PRINCIPLES 


1. All mental interaction consists of leader and follower phenomena. 

2. The desire for recognition is one of the most important traits that 
underlie leadership. 

3. Marginal uniqueness of personality is a fruitful source of leadership. 

4. The focalization of psychic energy produces leadership. 

5. Intelligence tests, while significant, do not give a full measurement of 
leadership qualities. 

6. Inhibition is characteristic of most leaders. 

7. The leader radiates stimuli. 

8. Achieving is the best test of leadership. 

9. Organizing ability multiplies leadership. 

0. Mental flexibility and versatility prolongs and enhances leadership. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


1. What is leadership? 

2. What is the most common type of leadership? 

3. How is the desire for recognition both a help and a hindrance in 
leadership ? 

4. Why is marginal uniqueness in itself a leadership trait ? 

5. Why does the group falsely rate physical size as a leadership quality? 

6. 'What is the chief value and the main weakness in self-confidence as a 
leadership factor? 

7- What is the danger in stressing the results of intelligence tests in 
estimating leadership ability? 

8. Illustrate the way in which inhibition explains leadership. 

* The Mirrors of Washington (Putnam, 1921), pp. 107-108. 





MENTAL LEADERSHIP 417 


g. Why is organizing ability a significant leadership trait? 
10. When is organizing ability a weakness in a leader? 
11. What is the relation of mental flexibility to leadership? 


PROBLEMS 


1. Are leaders egotists ? 
2. Explain: Be your own Thomas A. Edison. 
3. Under what conditions is the desire for recognition developed best? 
4. Illustrate marginal uniqueness. 
5. For what reason is focalization of one’s psychic energy becoming more 
and more difficult? 
6. What scientific values do intelligence tests have in determining leader- 
ship ability? 
7. How does the specialization that creates leadership often produce 
mental habits that defeat leadership? 
8. How may inhibition be both helpful and harmful to leadership? 
9g. How may a leader radiate stimuli and still not exhaust his supply of 
new ideas and procedures? 
to. “Should a young man dependent upon his own efforts for support 
pursue (for four years) a liberal-culture college course?” 


READINGS 


Baldwin, J. M., Social and Ethical Interpretations (Macmillan, 1906), 
ChinV 3 

The Individual and Soctety (Badger, 1911), Chs. I, V. 

Cooley, C. H., Human Nature and the Social Order (Scribners, 1902), 
Chili. 

Davis, Jr., M. M., Psychological Interpretations of Society (Columbia 
Univ. Studies, 1909), Ch. XV. 

Gowin, E. B., The Executive and his Control of Men (Macmillan, 1915). 

James, William, The Will to Believe (Longmans, Green: 1905), pp. 
216-54. 

“Great Men, Great Thoughts, and the Environment,” Afélantic 
Mon., XLVI: 451-59. 

Joly, Henri, Psychologie des grands hommes (Paris, 1891). 

- Tagore, Rabindranath, Personality (Macmillan, 1917), 

Terman, L. M., “The Psychology and Pedagogy of Leadership,” Peda- 
gogical Seminary, X1: 113-51. 

Ward, L. F., Pure Sociology (Macmillan, 1914), Chs. XVIII, XIX. 








CHAPTER XXXVI 
SOCIAL LEADERSHIP 


LEADER drives or draws other persons, compels or attracts, uses 
a “big stick” or the still small voice of service. 


LEADERSHIP AND AUTOCRACY 


Historically, the majority of leaders have been autocrats, resorting re- 
peatedly to fear and to paternalistic appeals. For example, the old-fash- 
ioned type of warden falls easily into an attitude of arbitrariness, which — 
he makes unbearable by suppressing the personal freedom of prisoners. 
His contacts are chiefly physical; he has no social relations with the 
“inmates.’’? 

There are two types of autocratic leadership as evidenced in the dis- 
tinction between Prussian and West Point methods. The Prussian mili- 
tary system was that of developing automatic, habitual, and machine-like 
obedience to the voice of the superior officer. The West Point method 
strives to secure “the loyal support of active minds.” The soldier is con- 
sidered as an intelligent person who is being trained to respond rationally 
to situations and to orders, or the lack of them, in relation to situations. 
The Prussian system capitalizes human abilities for brainless responses; 
the West Point method is a step toward democratic leadership. 

An important distinction may be made between goal and method. 
Some leaders (1) seek autocratic goals, goals of individual power, by 
democratic methods; some (2) seek democratic goals by autocratic — 
methods, some (3) seek autocratic goals by autocratic methods, others — 
(4) seek democratic goals by democratic methods. It is the first and sec- 
ond types which mystify the public; the third is easily recognized; the 
fourth is the most difficult to attain, and will be discussed at length in a 
later chapter. 

In treating his fellows the leader may rely on fear and hope. To the 
extent that his fellows fear him they will follow, perhaps reluctantly, 
hypocritically, and for a short time—until an auspicious moment to revolt 

» Frank Tannenbaum, Wall Shadows (Putnam, 1922), p. 24. 

Discussed further in Chapter XX XVIII. 

418 





SOCIAL LEADERSHIP 419 


seems to have arrived. A person in authority is prone to wield the club 
of fear over his fellows and thus become a “boss,” “slave-driver,” or a 
“czar.” This method often is the easiest and quickest in securing prompt 
obedience, because “the large place occupied by fear in human nature 
makes domination easy. Thus, workmen have a fearfulness of losing their 
jobs and submit to the domination of their jobs for the sake of holding 
them.’* It is also the traditionally military procedure. The soldiers who 
fail to obey orders promptly are shot; the workmen who foment labor 
troubles are “discharged.” To challenge a policeman may mean imme- 
diate arrest and a jail experience. 

The autocratic leader may also appeal to hope. Those who obey slavish- 
ly, who jump to do the leader’s bidding, who follow most implicitly, who 
challenge least, are rewarded with favors ; they may even be promoted over 
the heads of more competent associates. Through appealing to the hopes 
of his fellows a leader may acquire an army of blind, docile, and servile 
followers. 

A limited appeal to both fear and hope by a leader is probably justi- 
fiable, but the process can not go far without creating sham-followers. It 
is a wise leader who can keep his actions guided wholly by constructive 
goals, and not fall before the temptation to build up a personal following 
by arousing the fears and hopes of persons willing to act as his underlings. 
Many political leaders, for example, are guilty of fostering coteries of 
office-seekers or grafters, while some business leaders are guilty of creating 
a servile labor force. It is easy, also, for one who is superior to use his 
ability to control others, and to acquire the symbols of superiority, such as 
wealth and position, and then to use the social advantages thus secured “‘to 
achieve still greater superiority.’”* 

The interaction between fear and suspicion on one hand, and autocracy 
and brutality on the other hand is made clear by Tannenbaum in his de- 
scription of certain prison situations. 


The suppression and the lack of personal freedom, the monotony of their 
existence, the constant atmosphere of hatred, suspicion, and contempt, tend 
to contort, to twist, and to make bitter the attitude of the keeper toward his 
charges. The only relation he can have with them is that of dominance, and 
the only pleasure and play he can get, the only exercise of initiative of his 
disposal, comes through the imposition of authority. He needs pleasures, 
because all men need pleasures; but his pleasures become, through the prison 
machine, the exercise of brutality for him and pain for others.° 


*J. M. Williams, Principles of Social Psychology (Knopf, 1922), p. 30. 
* Ibid., p. 36. 
*Wall Shadows, pp. 28, 29. 


. 420 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


nn nnn nT SDE nS mn aE 


LEADERSHIP AND PERSONALITY 


Every significant social movement revolves about one or more active 
personalities. “Not until the cause, the movement is embodied in one or 
more masterful personalities who lead the mass, is there any chance of 
the success of the cause.” ® The reason is that people as a rule are not 
sufficiently motivated by abstractions; they cannot develop loyalty to any 
abstract concept as well as to personalities.? Christianity, thus originated 
in a self-sacrificing and dynamic personality and was carried forward by 
a series of virile personalities. 

Unworthy leaders may wreck a splendid cause; while narrow-minded 
persons in control may inaugurate and carry to fruition a movement under- 
mining the welfare of a whole population. The strategic position of the 
leader makes the quality of his actions of vast moment. Agitators are — 
especially dangerous as soon as they come into positions of real leader- 
ship. They have been agitated advocates and extremists so long that they — 
easily become unbalanced wielders of authority. The repeated defeat of © 
free government in Ireland was caused perhaps as much by the unreason- — 
able agitator-leader in Ireland as by the obstinate Englishman. 

Enthusiasm is another element in leadership which is contributed by — 
personality. It was Paul Revere’s ride; Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty, — 
or give me death;” Sheridan’s, “Turn boys, turn, we’re going back;’ 
Roosevelt’s “We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord ;” Wil- 
son’s dynamic slogan “make the world safe for democracy,” which gave 
life to arduous causes and difficult tasks, reinvigorating tired, disheartened, 
even cynical followers. 

















POLARIZATION OF LEADERSHJP 


Leadership acquires momentum. If a person succeeds as a leader, he is 
called on repeatedly. Being of wider interests than the ordinary indi- 
vidual he belongs to more groups than does the latter. To the extent 
that he is a successful leader, the demands from each of the groups 
to which he belongs multiply. Leadership in a specific group tends t 
become concentrated in a few persons. Moreover, some of these person 
are also the leaders in other groups. There is an overlapping of leadership 
or several points at which there is an overlapping. ‘This polarization o 


ay Ellwood, Reconstruction of Religion (Macmillan, 1922), p. 149. 


SOCIAL LEADERSHIP 421 


leadership has been well illustrated in a diagram by F. Stuart Chapin, who 


advances the following hypothesis*: “Leadership in the community: is 
usually vested in an inner circle of personnel common to several active 
groups.” 


As the demands upon a person for leadership multiply, he begins to 
spread his energies out until he becomes inefficient in some of his leadership 
positions. In other words he reaches a leadership saturation point, and 
groups that count on him find him failing them; they suffer or may even 
disintegrate. In this connection, Chapin’s hypothesis is: Polarization of 
leadership within the community as between groups tends to elaborate until 
a leader’s range of elasticity for participation in group activity is passed, 
when some one or more groups begin to disintegrate until an equilibrium 
of group activity is restored.? A point to be added to this hypothesis is the 
possibility of making more leaders, thus offsetting polarization of leader- 
ship. 

MEASURING LEADERSHIP 


The idea of measuring leadership ability springs from Thorndike’s 
classic assumption that whatever exists, exists in some amount, and what 
has quantity can be measured. This idea has some justification in the 
achievements of intelligence testing, accomplishment testing, and similar 
developments in the field of scientific social research. The success that has 
attended the efforts of investigators such as Hornell Hart in measuring 
social attitudes, or of W. W. Clark in devising a scale for measuring 
juvenile offenses, make plausible the hypothesis that leadership traits can 
be measured. 

The procedure for measuring leadership would include first the securing 
of evidences of leadership in a specific field of endeavor. These evidences 
would be statements in objective terms of conduct which constitute the 
given person’s main leadership activities. 

The next step is to have the evidences graded by persons, who, in addi- 
tion to possessing a broad and scientific training in social psychology and 
related social science subjects, are also recognized as_ successful 
democratic and constructive leaders in the various fields of social welfare. 
But a serious difficulty arises in that the graders are almost certain to re- 
flect their personal attitudes in the process, so that we get not a rating of 
leadership activities, but what the judges think about leadership. If some 
are autocratic in attitude, and others democratic, their ratings will vary 


®“Teadership and Group Activity,” Jour. of Applied Sociology, VIII: 144. 
*Jbid., p. 145. 


422 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





widely and hence be invalid.1° Even a high degree of correlation in their 
findings might show simply that they had the same prejudices. 

We then arrange the evidences in groups according to types of conduct. 
In the study of the leadership achievements of a minister, the groups of 
evidences might be those relating to “style of delivery,” “sermon subject 
matter and its treatment,” “pulpit methods,” “pastoral activities,” “ad- 
ministrative activities,’ and so forth. The next procedure is to arrange 
each evidence under its appropriate “group heading,” according to the 
median of the grades that is given it by the graders. By such a standard 
score sheet it is possible to score the leadership achievements of specific 
leaders in a given occupation more accurately than by any method now 
available, more accurately than by a simple guess, or by a personal opinion 
hastily ventured. 

The working out of standard score sheets for various occupations and_ 
professions will give a superior technique for estimating the worth of 
leaders in these fields. Persons aspiring to leadership in a given occupa- 
tion may perceive what are the values rated highest in that occupation ; 
they may also rate themselves against the score sheet, and can discover 
personal deficiencies. | 


EXECUTIVE AND REFLECTIVE LEADERSHIP 


An outstanding two-fold division of leadership is the reflective and — 
executive types. The first lays chief emphasis on reflective thought, teach- — 
ing, writing—without giving much attention to administration; the second 
refers to persons who are engaged mainly in “doing things” and in getting 
others to do things. In the first case, thinking is a characteristic to the 
exclusion of working directly with people. There is activity, but of a 
specialized type; namely, that of analyzing, synthesizing, explaining, — 
deducing, generalizing. In the second instance, thinking is a vital factor, 
but highly specialized, for it relates chiefly to coming quickly to con- 
clusions, to making decisions, to meeting crises, and to manipulating 
people. 

The executive type lives an associative life, at least, with a few chosen 
lieutenants; the intellectual leader lives in the company of ideas. The 
executive manipulates people ; the intellectual manipulates ideas. The first 
is so busy in meeting speaking engagements, attending committee and board 

















“The grading may be made according to some standard plan; for example, 
on the basis of ten to one—ten for the evidences considered most important, and one 
for those considered of little value. 


SOCIAL LEADERSHIP 423 





meetings, and holding conferences that he has little time for deep reflection 
upon fundamentals except as these crop out disconnectedly in daily ex- 
periences. The second is so busy in reflecting that he grows absent- 
minded, drifts from normal social contacts, becomes impractical. 

The difficulty of combining a strenuous administrative life with a 
reflective, laboratory life is great. It is only persons with an extraordi- 
nary amount of energy and endurance, other things being equal, and a 
definite arrangement of hours, who can long keep up both types of work. 
Usually they alternate between both, although that procedure is hard to 
follow, for success both administratively and intelligently leads to so many 
demands that the ordinary leader is unable to find time to meet the 
requirements of both. 

The executive as a rule is characterized by greater physical force and 
endurance, “push,” and activity, but by less depth of sound theorizing than 
the intellectual leader. He usually makes more social contacts daily, is 
closer in touch with affairs, more red-blooded, and aggressive. He 
generally commands the higher salary and receives recognition from 
society sooner than the scientific or literary intellectual. The latter works 
for ends that are more intangible, that are farther removed, leads a less 
exhaustive life, enjoys greater personal freedom, and by later generations 
may be rated higher. 


LEADERSHIP AND GROUPS 


Leaders are either group manipulators, group representatives, group 
builders, or group originators. 

1. The group manipulator is sensitive to group emotions and able to 
express in pleasing and effective ways the desires of the people. Often 
by oratorical or spectacular methods, he obtains wide popularity, political 
preferment, or vast wealth. As a rule he fails to give his constituents 
adequate returns for their investment in him. His ultimate objective is 
not their advantage but his own. He uses his followers as stepping 
stones. Having once gained the confidence of his group he trades upon 
it; and before it breaks, he may have repeatedly made the group his 
cat’s paw. Often he “hypnotizes” his fellows or at least those who are 
gullible to nice-sounding phrases. In this class is the advertiser who 
announces something which catches the fancy but possesses little utility 


4 The classification of leaders which is given by Martin Conway in The Crowd in 
Peace and War, Chapters VI, VIII, unduly expands the crowd concept, and at the 
same time inadequately provides for genuine group builders and originators. 


424 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





or genuine beauty, the seller of oil stock who makes dazzling forecasts, the 
politician who glibly promises a new era of prosperity. 

Sometimes the manipulator appeals to the crowd spirit in a worthy 
cause, for example, Sargent, the manager of Modjeska when the Polish 
actress was touring the country, arranged the following “stunt” which in 
modified ways was widely copied. 


When Modjeska appeared in Washington the rush for tickets was so 
terrific that the crowd smashed the windows of the box office and tore every- 
thing movable out of the lobby, necessitating the calling of the police to quell 
the riot. This was a carefully planned scheme of Sargent’s to advertise his 
star and news of the incident was telegraphed all over the country.” 


The group manipulator takes note of the vague desires of the crowd, 
crystallizes these inchoate yearnings, and capitalizes them in terms of. 
personal aggrandizement. He drives his subjects hither and yon at vital 
sacrifices to themselves, and not infrequently to his own downfall, as the 
Kaiser and his military cohorts led the German people to defeat in 1914- 
1918. He is essentially autocratic, but in a democracy he is an adept 
in assuming the guise of democratic leadership. 

2. The group representative, while a personification of the un- 
expected feelings as well as of the formulated opinions of his constit- 
uents, is also the spokesman of their will. The worthy labor leader is a 
group representative. Under the pure democratic form of a republic, the 
legislator is expected to represent public opinion. In our country we often 
fail to keep our legislators apprized concerning our attitudes even on 
fundamental issues, unless we represent professionally a special interest, 
and hence our representatives tend to retrograde into group manipulators 
or politicians. 

3. The group builder, in the finest sense of the term, tries to find out 
the best interests of his group and to lead accordingly. His concern is~ 
entirely with the welfare of his fellows and in helping them to live and act — 
together with increasing harmony, justice, and progress. He determines | 
the causes of social friction, injustice, or inertia, outlines steps of recon- | 
struction, and pilots the way. The group builder employs all the good 
will that he can summon. He organizes social good will within his group — 
and harmonizes men wherever possible without sacrificing societary princi- 
ples. If he must antagonize, he proceeds in a social spirit and wherever 
feasible substitutes understanding for ignorance, good will for ill will, and 
organization for chaos. He does not try to conquer, for conquering, per 

“Los Angeles Times, September 13, 1913. 


SOCIAL LEADERSHIP 425 





se, not only fails to win respect and love, but feeds the appetite for further 
conquering. The group builder tries to discover what is harmonious, just, 
and constructive for his group, and then endeavors to weave these ideals 
into the life of the group. 

4. The group originator, possessed by a new idea, proceeds to win 
persons to the acceptance of that idea. He may utilize or ignore organized 
efforts. Today in Western civilization it is not uncommon for a committee 
to be called together and an organization to be launched immediately upon 
the first expression of a new idea or program. History, however, dis- 
closes other emphases, such as those of the Founder of Christianity, who 
attempted no special organization, but preferred to change human hearts 
and then to allow re-motivated personalities to work out his principles. 
The group originator at his best aims to create leaders, to stimulate initia- 
tive and invention in conjunction with a socialized spirit in all persons, 
and hence to provide for the largest and richest possible development of 
human personalities. 

In no case can the leader, even of the best group builder and group 
originator types, ignore group opinion. At times he must patiently wait on 
group opinion; by all means he cannot afford to become impatient of it. 
He must educate the group up to his aims. President Wilson’s failure 
to get the support of the American public behind his world ideals is partly 
explained by his ignoring of public opinion: 


He did not seem to realize that what the Kansas farmer and the Chicago 
clerk thought of the Fourteen Points was infinitely more important for his 
hopes and the hope of the world than what reply Counts Czernin and Hertling 
made to them.” 


LEADERSHIP AND ACHIEVEMENT 


A person may become a leader through accident of social circumstances, 
through “pull,” or by hypocrisy, but if he lives in a democracy he will not 
be able to maintain his leadership long unless he proves efficient. In a 
democracy also, he who is truly efficient becomes thereby a leader and 
sooner or later, barring accident, is sought out and socially recognized. 

In business, efficiency is usually an ability “to make money;” in 
politics, to make a speech or create an organization which controls votes ; 
in the ministry, to make “conversions” or to build churches. The popular 

understanding, however, of efficiency is generally inadequate, and may even 
xe the opposite of scientific. Hence a leader who is efficient in social 
welfare measures is almost certain to be opposed by money-making leaders 


3M. E. Ravage, The Malady of Europe (Macmillan, 1923), p. 128, 


426 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


ee ee pci aia ne 


or soul-winning leaders. He will be charged with being a “radical ;” and 
if he persists, he will have his character and motives impugned and become 
the victim of persecution. He arouses the antagonism of conservatives 
and all the other beneficiaries of “the god of things as they are,” although 
later generations may rise up and call him blessed. 


PRINCIPLES 


1. Leaders drive or draw. 

2. Reliance on fear and force in leadership produces autocracy. 

3. By appealing to hope and reward an autocratic leader may create 
large numbers of subservient followers. 

4. All great social movements revolve about strong personalities. 

5. The measuring of leadership ability depends on securing a large 
body of scientific data regarding the nature of leadership. 

6. Leadership may stress either reflective or executive activities. 

7. Leaders will be group manipulators, group representatives, group 
builders, or group originators. | 

8. Current achieving is the best test of leadership ability. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. Define an autocratic leader. 
_ What is meant by measuring leadership? 
. In what ways are executive and reflective leaders different? 
. In what ways are they alike? 
. Distinguish between leaders as group representatives and as group © 
builders. 
6. What makes it possible for group manipulators to succeed extensively 
even under modern civilization conditions ? 
7. Why is present achievement better than past achievement as a test of — 
a leader’s ability? 


er (ah eS 


PROBLEMS 


_ Is it easier for a leader to draw or drive? 

. Is autocratic leadership ever justifiable ? 

. Why do some men enjoy being slave-drivers of their fellow-men? 

. What is meant by “individual ascendancy” as opposed to “social 
ascendancy’? 

. Is “the proverbial individualism of the farmer” the same as individ- 

uality and potential leadership? 


kWhD 


tn 





SOCIAL LEADERSHIP 427 


6. Why do many people imagine their leadership ability greater than it 
actually is? 

7. Explain: It is the work of a leader “to pull triggers in the mind of 
his followers.” 

8. Which boys are the more likely to become good leaders, those from 
mansions or those from cabins ? 

g. How can a leader of splendid ability but of immoral habits be pre- 
vented from demoralizing the group? 

10. Why does leadership assume maximum importance in times of transi- 
tion? 

11. What are the characteristics of a successful yell leader? 

12. Why do the sons of leaders of the “self-made” type rarely show the 
qualities of leadership which their fathers manifested ? 

13. Have “all advances in civilization” been due to leaders? 

14. How far should one’s personality be introduced into his work? 

15. Are rural or urban communities in the greater need of leadership? 

16. Why are some of the world’s most valuable leaders unpopular? 

17. When should a leader be an agitator; when a compromiser ; and when 
a “standpatter”? 

18. What are the differences between a demagogue and a statesman? 

1g. Is a young man or an old man more apt to be led by friends? 

20. Why does a leader’s boasting beget suspicion rather than confidence? 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Cooley, C. H., Social Organization (Scribners, 1909), Chs. XXIII, 
XXIV. 

Soctal Process (Scribners, 1918), Ch. VI. 

Mumford, Eben, “Origins of Leadership.” Amer. Jour. of Soctology, XII: 
216-40, 3607-97, 500-31. 

Ross, E. A., Social Control (Macmillan, 1908), pp. 30-34. 

Thomas and Znaniecki, Polish Peasant in Europe and America (Badger, 


1920), IV :181-208. 
_ Todd, A. J., Theories of Social Progress (Macmillan, 1918), Chs. XXVI, 


XXVIII. 

Ward, L. F., Applied Sociology (Ginn, 1916), Part II. 

Webster, Hutton, “Primitive Individual Ascendancy,” Publications of the 
American Sociological Society, XII: 46-60. 





CHAPTER XXXVII 
PRESTIGE LEADERSHIP 


OCIAL leadership and prestige are inseparable, for prestige is a 

rating of superiority, which gives leadership its chance. Prestige 
is a person’s evaluation by his associates. As stated by Leopold, prestige 
is “a favorable impression, of one person in the eyes of another.” * 

The superiority assigned a person by others rarely coincides with his 
true worth. It is a relative matter, in which a leader is compared by 
persons with their own individual standards. Hence a leader’s prestige 
depends on the standards of the persons who are judging him, It varies 
according to the latter’s knowledge, prejudices, attitudes. 

Since one’s prestige rarely corresponds to his real worth it is in part 
a delusion. The term, prestige, comes from the Latin and means de- 
lusion. It once connoted a reputation obtained by juggling and con- 
juring, casting out demons, and prophesying. It deluded by appealing to 
personal fancy, or by arousing the feelings and passions. 

Prestige, in the sense that it is commonly used today, is a psychological 
estimate, but it is rarely based on “a scientific personal analysis of a 
person’s worth;” it is a “complex product of half-intellectual, half-emo- 
tional attitude, of each member of the group toward the leader as seen 
by other members.” * The vast majority of people, not being psycho- 
logically trained, are largely unscientific in rating their leaders. 

“The subject of prestige is not the actual personality but the picture 
of this individual drawn by public opinion.” * The less scientifically 
trained the masses are, the more easily they may be duped by false leaders 
who innocently or deliberately take advantage of them. By displaying 
“symptoms of wealth’ one may acquire for the time being the prestige 
of the wealthy. 

In judging pictures in an art gallery the ordinary person asks first who 
is the painter and then judges accordingly. If a picture is by “Rem- 
brandt,” it is a masterpiece; if by Maes, it goes into the discard. In art 


* Prestige (Unwin, 1913), p. 25. 
Thomas and Znaniecki, The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (Badger, — 

1920) td :207. 
Ibid. 


428 





PRESTIGE LEADERSHIP 429 


as in drama, even the critic says with Bernard Shaw: “How can I tell 
if it is a good play until I know who wrote it?” * 


SOURCES OF PRESTIGE 


There are about five main sources of a person’s prestige. 1. There 
is the prestige arising from a person’s present position, rank, office, in- 
signia. If a stranger is introduced as “Mayor,” “Governor,” or “Colonel,” 
he is at once given a rating that the given rank ordinarily carries with it. 
He receives the homage that is due the institution whose representa- 
tive he is at the moment. It is not easy for the average spectator to sep- 
arate the office and the institution from the worth of the person holding 
that office. Since an official’s actual personal worth is usually either 
greater or less than the rating of the office, and often greatly so, the pres- 
tige that he acquires is rarely accurate. Insignia give prestige. The 
clergyman’s coat is a symbol which generates prestige. Both the bishop 
and the hobo must dress the part.® 

2. Past good fortune is another source of prestige. The inheritance 
of wealth gives prestige in any country where money is rated high. 
Money is power, economic power, social power; it can buy the best of 
residences, the most attractive luxuries, and even has influence in the 
church, in courts, in politics. Inherited status also gives prestige. The 
son of a millionaire, of a sovereign, a national pugilist, a motion picture 
actor, is worshiped because he carries the name of a public favorite. 

3. Present good fortune creates prestige. The finding of a million 
dollar “gusher” at once elevates the owner in social esteem. Persons 
who have made a “lucky” move and thereby have jumped into prominence 
gain prestige. Many an ordinary man elevated to office in order to break 
a deadlock between far abler candidates, has thereby adventitiously 
acquired prestige. 

4. Past success creates prestige for the current hour. He who did 
something well five, or ten years ago is expected to perform well today. 
Since he has done well, therefore, he will do well now—such is the logic 
of prestige. Such prestige acts as stimulant or chloroform, according to 
the social attitudes and situation of the person who acquires prestige. 
If young and ambitious, he will likely be stimulated. If he has achieved 
repeated success, has become surfeited with public honors, or if he is 
failing in health, he will be inclined to rely on his prestige to carry him 


* Arbitrator, V: 3. : 
°F. E. Slosson and June E. Downey, Plots and Personality (Century, 1923), p. 71. 


430 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 

SiR Ran Oar APSO CL LS SSS YE Rea a 
through present emergencies. How often an orator will speak without 
preparation, depending on his prestige to carry the unprepared speech 
“across.” 

5. The best basis for prestige is current achievement. He who by 
his own efforts does things well today, who is climbing by honest labor, 
will be given, barring accident of circumstances, a full measure of justly 
earned prestige. 

Achievement will win prestige, even though its first exhibitions be 
laughed at. The following incident illustrates how conduct first pro- 
nounced “crazy” may be changed by “results” into leadership prestige. 


In Suchedniow ...a farmer read in the Gazeta Swiateczena how from a 
morass a good meadow, and how from useless, good and fertile land can be 
made. Confident in the wise advice, he began at once to dig pits through his 
wet meadows and marshes. His neighbors laughed at him (saying), that he 
was establishing a cemetery upon his land and digging graves for his whole 
family. When finally he began to carry dust from the road paved with chalk- 
stones and scattered it upon the wet meadows, they shook their heads saying 
that he was crazy. But later they saw the result of this work. They were 
convinced that a piece of meadow from which formerly a small heap of poor 


hay mixed with moss had been gathered began to give this careful farmer an 


enormous wagon of hay, half clover. Then they themselves started to dig 
pits in their meadows and from morning until night they carry dust from 
the roads. And, therefore, where up to the present were morasses and 
marshes there are now meadows that can be mowed twice.” 


Prestige is unsocial. Any person who stands out from his fellows, 
whether helpfully or harmfully is accorded prestige among some persons. 
Wealth irrespective of the use that is made of it has prestige. The man 
who makes money is rated higher by public opinion than he who helps to 
make character. Deviltry prestige often scintillates above goodness 
prestige. 

Prestige is attached to persons in the most whimsical and fantastic 
ways with regard to their moral or social worth. The difficulty is not 
with prestige as such but with the lack of discrimination shown by those 
who bestow it; hence, the need to rationalize people’s assumptions of 
superiority in others. 


PRESTIGE AND PERSONALITY 


Prestige is often the tragedy of greatness. It may give a person a 
false estimate of his worth. If his prestige is larger than his real 


*Thomas and Znaniecki, the Polish Peasant, IV: 201-2. 


PRESTIGE LEADERSHIP 431 


worth, he learns to rate himself according to it and thus gets an exag- 
gerated opinion of himself. If his prestige is smaller than his real 
worth, he may become disheartened, or he may be stimulated to overcome 
the disadvantage, and to win back a lost prestige or to build to larger 
proportions. 

Prestige may hinder the growth of sympathy by making a man ego- 
tistical and self-centered. With eyes upon him, he acquires an attitude 
of considering himself a social center; he fails to seek the viewpoints 
of others, to “feel with” others. 

Prestige promotes pride and vanity. Thus, the very success which 
produces an enlarging personal usefulness creates a prestige which may 
bring about a leader’s downfall. In achieving, a person is endangered 
by the magnifying glass of prestige. 

Prestige is often sought by all manner of false means. Almost every- 
thing except real worth and achievement is played up by many persons 
as a means of acquiring prestige. Many leaders give themselves consid- 
erable personal advertising, which, however, quickly reaches a point of 
saturation. Preachers, especially evangelists, are prone to fall in this 
way, particularly in their public prayers. Note this sentence from a 
prayer heard over the radio: 


“OQ Lord, take care of the 3,760 persons converted in our tabernacle during 
the past year.” 


A leader’s prestige is based in part on his attitudes. If he acts in 
evident good faith, moral prestige at least, will be accorded him. He 
will be rated as trustworthy and reliable; his ability-prestige, however, 
may be of a different sort. The problem becomes acute when a leader’s 
ability is superior but is accompanied by a low moral rating. If a leader’s 
work removes him almost entirely from associative life as in the case 
of the laboratory worker, his moral prestige is of secondary importance. 
On the other hand, if a person’s work requires that he appear daily 
before large numbers of people and if his dishonesty or immorality is 
regularly flaunted, then his moral prestige becomes more important than 
his ability-prestige. People easily learn to copy what they frequently see, 
especially if it appears in connection with skill or art. The motion picture 
star’s personal life is usually heralded far and wide and hence her morality 
level is naively copied by the multitudes who are captivated by the film 
spectacles she produces. In daily public life a person of ability but low 
morals will set currents of low human values in motion, and thus over- 
balance all the gains to progress that his ability may achieve. 


432 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


chet Rsaaenen MR INUTR I  De ea ea nt Rc ea 


Persons are continually estimating each other’s worth, but always on 
the basis of the social values, which they hold. Prestige, thus, goes con- 
tinually back to social values. If prize-fighting is a social value, then 
the ability of one man to knock another man down for ten seconds will be 


rated high and that man be given prestige. If the Christian gospel of. 


sacrificial service and love be held truly valuable then prize-fighting will 
be rated low and a champion will be accorded the prestige of a jungle 
beast. To study prestige scientifically it is necessary, hence, to consider 
the social values of a people. 

The main weakness of prestige is its tendency to rely on appearances. 
He who can “appear well” is thereby accorded prestige. Culture in the 
narrow sense of “manners” is still rated high; the question is not always 
raised whether fine manners and courtesy are supported by social and 
personal worth. A man in a soldier’s uniform is rated higher than the 
same person in overalls. Hence, socially shrewd persons may easily 
hoodwink the public and secure for themselves false recognition. | 

In order to regain lost prestige it is often necessary to remain out of 
public sight for a time and then to appear in a new field of activity. 


A man in politics who has suffered a serious defeat must usually patiently — 


bide his time and later build up a new prestige. 


INSTITUTIONAL PRESTIGE 


Institutions, like persons, possess prestige. In intellectual fields, phi- 
losophy and mathematics have had a long standing prestige, while only 
a century ago subjects such as geology and biology had no particular 
recognition, and a few decades ago sociology had no prestige. Gradations 
in prestige, often based on many adventitious factors, exist today among 
academic subjects. Likewise, social institutions have relative prestiges, 
which have been built up through a long process of time. Private prop- 
erty becomes recognized in a national constitution, and its prestige multi- 
plies. An entire social class gets a false estimate of its status and another 
group may blindly or otherwise accept this false estimate even to its 
own detriment. Slaves usually have been forced to accept the rating that 
the slave-holding class gives itself. Permanent gradations thus become 
falsely established and fake values perpetuated. Length of existence in 
itself sometimes gives prestige ; again, novelty is the main key to prestige. 
Institutional prestige, like personal prestige, is the result of personal esti- 
mates or evaluations, and these in turn interact with the prevailing social 
values. 


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PRESTIGE LEADERSHIP 433 


PRINCIPLES 


. Prestige is a rating of superiority. 
. Prestige is generally greater or less than a person’s actual ability 


and worth. 


. The inaccuracy of prestige is due to ignorance by one person of 


another person’s ability, or to unscientific methods of making the 
evaluation. 


. The sources of prestige are found in present rank, past good fortune, 


present good fortune, past achievement, and present achievement. 


. Prestige is morally neutral. 
. Prestige sometimes gives a person a false estimate of himself. 
. Prestige when sought as a goal or used to seek anti-social goals 


becomes immoral. 


. A person’s intentions, attitudes, wishes, are elusive but vitally related 


to prestige. 


. Institutions acquire prestige as well as persons. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. What is prestige? 


How may a leader occupy several prestige levels at any given time? 


. Without a leader changing in any way, why may his prestige change? 


Why was prestige first thought of as a delusion? 
What is the most important source of prestige? 
Explain: Prestige is unsocial. 

Why is prestige so often unscientific ? 

In what sense is prestige the tragedy of greatness? 
How are a person’s attitudes related to his prestige? 


. How is prestige related to social values? 
. In what way may a favorable prestige be harmful? 


PROBLEMS 


. What is the relation of a person’s prestige to his real worth? 


To what extent can prestige be successfully “manufactured” ? 
How may one keep prestige from making him unduly proud? 


. How may one whose prestige is far less than his real worth overcome 


this handicap? 


434 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


iceitaniee tan BOA ARETE BARE ASE pets Se NE Aa 

5. What is an institution’s chief source of prestige in an old country? 
In a new country? 

6. Does progress in social stability “lessen the hero-values of a leader, 
and exalt his directive capacity”? 

7. Should a general go to the front when technically he can direct the 
fighting better from the distant headquarters? 

8. Explain: High-heeled slippers are designed “for stationary ad- 
vertising.”’ 

9. Under what conditions does immoral conduct give prestige? 

10. How much attention should a person give to his prestige? 

11. What is the relation of prestige to reputation? 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Carlyle, Thomas, Heroes and Hero Worship (Houghton Mifflin, 1922), 
ectsi 1. 

Fiske, John, “Sociology and Hero-Worship,” Atlantic Mon., REVIT 
75-84. 

Leopold, Lewis, Prestige (Unwin, 1913). 

Thomas and Znaniecki, The Polish Peasant in Europe and America 
(Badger, 1920), Part II, Ch. II. 


CHAPTER XXXVIII 
DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP 


HERE is an increasing demand for leadership which is democratic. 

In order to survive long in the present era even the autocrat must 
put on the cloak of democracy. As one way of getting at the meaning of 
democratic leadership, 158 persons who are known as intelligent leaders 
in their respective groups, among them public school administrators and 
teachers, ministers, business men, Federal Board men, university profes- 
sors, and post-graduate men and women, and social workers were asked 
- recently to choose an outstanding leader in American life and history 
who illustrates the principle of democratic leadership, and to indicate 
three or more things which this leader did that are evidences of the 
democracy of his leadership. The emphasis thus was placed on behavior 
rather than upon subjective traits, such as generosity or nobility of char- 
acter, because the existence of these subjective traits is probably proved 
only by conduct over a period of time. The best evidences of leadership 
of any kind are found, not in what one person thinks about a so-called 
leader, but in what the alleged leader actually does. 

When the 478 evidences of democratic leadership that were cited by 
the 158 judges were examined it was found that 52 were stated “sub- 
jectively” and hence were discarded, leaving 416 evidences available for 
study. The classification was difficult, partly because of an overlapping 
of evidences. The data showed at least eight different types of evidences 
of the democracy of leadership. 

1. The first grouping into which the “evidences” fall, referred to 
“increasing the opportunities for the development of other persons.” 
W. E. B. DuBois once put the idea as follows: Democracy is “a willing- 
ness to look for and encourage ability wherever found.” Representative 
evidences of this type together with the name of the leader in each case 
are given herewith: 

Originated the normal school for the training of teachers (Horace Mann). 

Led the movement for giving votes to women (Susan B. Anthony). 

Provided industrial training for fellow Negroes (Booker T. Washington). 


Brought classic music within the reach and appreciation of the masses 


(Theodore Thomas). 
Manufactured inexpensive motor cars for the common people (Ford). 


435 


436 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





The data in hand indicate that Dewey takes too narrow a view when 
he says that “democracy multiplies occasions for imitation, not occasions 
for thought in action.’? Our facts show that in a democracy leaders 
stimulate other persons to be leaders as well as imitators. 

2. A second type of evidences of democratic leadership emphasizes 
promoting the welfare of the group, as such. It is the nation group, 
the labor group, the world group in whose behalf effort is expended. 


Formed a nation out of discordant colonists (Washington). 

Held the United States together (Lincoln). 

Made the whole country’s welfare his reason for a conservative program 
(Roosevelt, Pinchot). 

Established and maintained a confederate organization composed of many 
varieties of local labor unions (Gompers). 

Spoke and wrote for world friendship and world democracy (Wilson). 


3. The evidences of democratic leadership also indicate how the re- 
spective leaders have taken the side of weakness against power and of 
injustice against special privilege. 


Struck off the shackles from enslaved Negroes (Lincoln). 

Fought the trusts to a standstill and urged on every hand a square deal for 
the weak (Roosevelt). 

Supported helpless women in industry against corporate greed (Brandeis). 

Championed immigrants and the poor when in trouble (Jane Addams). 

Took the part of the “kids” (Ben Lindsey). 


4. Another evidence of democratic leadership is the leader’s showing 
an at-oneness with the humbler members of lis groups. 


Identified himself with the philosophy of Poor Richard (Franklin). 

In simple speech and deed he voiced the ideals of the peasantry (Lincoln). 

Rode to Washington on horse-back without attendants, tied his horse to 
the fence and walked unceremoniously into the Senate Chamber for his 
inauguration as president (Jefferson). 

He chose plain people, plain ways, plain clothes, and simple plainness of 
speech (Emerson). 

Did not hesitate to talk, dine, or work with the plainest citizen (Roosevelt). 

Never forsook the poor and the defeated classes, living always after their 
fashion (Jane Addams). | 


This at-oneness is sometimes simulated in order to take advantage of 
the unthinking. Tammany’s hold over the East Side is due to what is 
alleged to be partly feigned attitudes. In season and out Tammany 


* Human Nature and Conduct (Holt, 1923), p. 72. | 


DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP 437 





can count on support irrespective of the qualifications of its candidates 
for office. The explanation is found in the activities of Tammany precinct 
captains who are “on the job” continually of identifying themselves with 
the people’s immediate problems. It has been said that if there is an 
eviction, the precinct captain is present to render help; if there is an 
arrest, the captain goes to court with the one charged with guilt; if there 
is sickness, the captain arrives ahead of the priest; and if there is a death 
the captain is on hand before the undertaker comes. The charges of graft 
against Tammany do not obscure the fact that the at-oneness principle is 
operative and effective. 

5. Another trend of democratic leadership is found in the habit of 
consulting with authorities, even opponents, before acting. 


Put opponents in the Cabinet (Lincoln). 

Called in and consulted with persons of opposing beliefs as a basis for 
action (Roosevelt). 

In educational situations, tries to understand the point of view of all persons 
concerned (J. R. Angell). 


6. A tendency to use the discussion method of securing adjustments 
is stressed in the evidences of democratic leadership. This procedure 
differs from the fifth classification in that the leader subordinates himself 
more definitely. Decisions are made by the group of consultants including 
the leader as an individual member. 


Called a peace conference between the Russians and Japanese in 1905 
(Roosevelt). 

Called a conference on the limitation of armaments (Harding). 

Established the open forum (Coleman). 


The method of leading, not by ordering but by sitting down and talking 
matters over with lieutenants is well illustrated by Alexander Johnson, 
the social welfare leader, who says: 


If I (a member of the State Board of Charities, Indiana) found something 
I thought was wrong, I talked to the Superintendent, not as a superior officer 
... but as man to man... . I believed that a reform brought about in this 
way from within, was a real one, while a new procedure forced on an official 
by pressure from without and not really appreciated by those who must 
practice it might have worse results than the method it had supplanted. 


7. Other evidences of democratic leadership relate to the methods 
of carrying out decisions when they have once been determined upon. 


2 Adventures in Social Welfare (Fort Wayne, Indiana: 1923), p. 89. 


438 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


DN Se THE TE PSR EES NOS OE RS 
While these are difficult to frame, the chief one may be stated as follows: 
(a) By showing the wav, and sacrificing himself; (b) by exhibiting 
self-restraint and not giving in to egoistic desires and appetite. 


He made people feel that he was their servant rather than their overlord 
(Lincoln). | 
He led the way and others were stimulated to follow (Roosevelt). 


In his autobiography, Alexander Johnson® explains the democratic 
method of a friend in these words: ‘He never said, ‘Go;’ he always said, 
‘Come.’” In other words, leadership that is called democratic rarely 
drives; it attracts, magnetizes; it arouses one’s social nature and offers 
codperation. It consists in wanting people to feel toward you “as loving 
children do their father.” + In referring to his own methods of leadership, 


Mr. Johnson declares that a leader (of the type of which we are now. 


thinking) will not preclude his followers from questioning his decisions 
or from giving criticism. When a decision is questioned the democratic 
leader will give explanations both willingly and cheerfully ; otherwise, he 
will not be fit to lead. The significance of the statement: “And I, if I be 
lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me,” ® is found in the 
fact that a wholly self-sacrificing, loving personality is being lifted up 
and not a domineering, arbitrary one. 

8. The eighth type of evidences of democratic leadership emphasizes 
rendering service without expectation of reward. Profits, position, power 
—none of these mundane and material enticements appeal. A cause is 
espoused for its own sake even though it cost the leader his life. It is 
only when a leader acts without accepting reward over a long period of 
time that his conduct may be given this highest of all ratings. 


He refused to be made a king (Washington). 
He sought neither wealth, rank, power, nor any other reward for his 
services to his country (Lincoln). 


In examining the eight aforementioned types of evidences of democratic 
leadership it is seen that they fall into five classes. (1) The first three 
types relate to the welfare of other persons as the goal which is sought. 
(2) The fourth reveals the characteristic manner of living of the demo- 
cratic leader. (3) Types five and six disclose manner of coming to a 

* Adventures in Social Welfare, p. 84. 


*Tbid., p. 197. 
* John 12: 32. 


te ei — — 


DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP 439 


decision. Because of autocratic elements, type five may be considered 
as only semi-democratic. (4) The seventh type explains the demo- 
cratic manner of carrying out decisions, of getting things done, 
of securing action. (5) The last mentioned set of evidences of 
democratic leadership reveals ‘motive,’ and is the most difficult of all 
to diagnose. 

It is at once apparent that in nearly all democratic leaders these five 
classes of conduct are not found in equal proportion. Some may be 
missing entirely. In certain cases the goal may be democratic, and the 
method of coming to a decision autocratic. In other instances the goal and 
the method of arriving at decisions may be democratic, but “a big stick” 
may be used in attaining the goal. And all of the first seven types of 
democratic leadership may be exhibited—but in the end for purposes of 
gaining self-advancement. The first class, that of seeking democratic 
goals, is apparently the easiest and most common phase of democratic 
leadership to be achieved. The fourth class, that of leading democrat- 
ically by democratic means without any thought of personal reward, is 
evidently most difficult and rare. In its fullest and richest sense demo- 
cratic leadership is personal conduct which seeks to increase the welfare 
of other persons, which is arrived at by the combined judgment of those 
concerned, which emanates from a simple mode of living, which is 
carried out magnetically by example, and which seeks no rewards. 

A further analysis of the data® makes possible additional conclusions 
concerning democratic leadership. The first is that, barring accident, 
democratic leadership is possible of attasnment by normal persons.” All 
above the moron level possess traits which indicate that they might qualify 
regarding the five phases of democratic leadership which have been sum- 
marized in the preceding paragraph. 

1. All normal persons show concern in the welfare of at least a few 
other persons ; they manifest interest in the welfare of a few social groups, 
as such, of which they are members; and on occasion they take the side 
of injustice against brutal strength. The difficulty, of course, in this 
connection is that of making one’s attitudes all-inclusive. It is easy to 
want to help a few persons, one’s own immediate friends, but to 
respond similarly toward all human beings, especially those of social 
groups widely different in ideals from one’s own group, is a matter of 
broad and sympathetic education. 


*Given in the preceding paragraphs. 
™By persons who are not definitely subnormal mentally. 


440 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





2. All ordinary persons at times show an at-oneness with common 
folks. Even the “great” and the wealthy often “put on superior airs” 
for purposes of social effect, but in inner circles reveal longings for 
simplicity. 

3. The democratic method of arriving at decisions, namely, by secur- 
ing the combined judgment of all concerned, is a method any person is 
capable of using, unless perchance he has become possessed of fixed auto- 
cratic habits. 

4. Every person is capable of setting constructive examples, and by 
kindly, sympathetic means of stimulating a following for a socially worthy 
cause. : 

5. Every person, at least in behalf of a few, acts without expectation 
of reward. Again, the difficulty of extending this principle to include 
large numbers of people is an educational problem of far-reaching . 
proportions. 

Despite all the difficulties involved, however, it may be said that 
democratic leadership activities are not reserved for the few, but rather 
are possible for many. If democratic leadership is not only mystically 
enshrined in the memory of a revered Lincoln or a “square deal” Roose~ 
velt, but may also be found in the actions of normal persons, then the 
possibilities of human leadership are almost unlimited. If the essence 
of democratic leadership may be expressed through striving for the 
welfare of mankind in need anywhere, then it makes a difference how 
one conducts himself, whether he addresses his associates in choice English 
or slouches back into the use of slang, whether he speaks unfeelingly or 
thoughtfully and sympathetically, whether he acts wholesomely, or ten 
degrees less than wholesomely, whether his behavior is self-centered or 
others-centered. 

At moments of greatest discouragement and severest defeat a person 
may remember that his democratic-leadership possibilities cannot be stolen 
from him. Moreover, he may also take courage from the fact that his 
very defeats afford him new sympathies and a better understanding of 
the struggles of other persons, and hence, may multiply his democratic 
leadership possibilities manyfold. What ‘a stimulating concept, the de- 
mocracy of leadership, universally available—perhaps the most dynamic 
and precious of personality traits. 

Persons may falsely delude themselves into thinking that they are dem- 
ocratic leaders. A foreman who has come up from the ranks of unskilled 
labor may naively declare that he knows all about working conditions, 
but as a matter of fact be quite “unable to guess at the picture in the 


DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP AAI 


worker’s head, and hence to understand his actions.”® The exercise 
of power has given the foreman new experiences and new attitudes 
which tend to separate him from the men working under his orders. 
A foreman or even a corporation president may feel that he knows the 
worker’s mind because he himself was once a day laborer or perhaps a 
newsboy. He overlooks one important fact, however, that he has de- 
veloped a success complex or success habits; that is, he has been moving 
up round by round, while the day laborers, of whom he was once one, 
are the victims of non-success or even repression complexes. He who 
has risen from a humble level of life has had success promotion experi- 
ences, and hence has developed a success complex, while he who has 
worked hard for a lifetime at the same routine task has experienced 
disappointment after disappointment, a non-promotion existence, and 
has acquired attitudes of defeat and acquiescence or of defeat and rest- 
lessness—depending on the nature of his experiences and on his tempera- 
mental dispositions. 

A manufacturer may feel that he understands his employees who are 
working for him at long hours, because he himself is working ten or 
twelve hours a day. Even though a Christian, a churchman, and one 
trained in the principles of democracy, he turns against his employees 
when they become restless and go on a strike. He points out that he works 
a long day, and why shouldn't they do likewise? He forgets, however, 
that his long day’s work is self-imposed, while his employees feel that 
their long day has been imposed upon them perchance by soulless cor- 
porations, interlocking directorates, and an unjust economic system. He ° 
forgets, also, that his work is full of interesting problems at which he 
labors hour after hour without realizing the passage of time, while the 
factory man’s task or the coal miner’s job has no new stimuli in it day 
after day, and hence becomes dull and stupid. The employer’s work 
is stimulating, thought-provoking; the employee’s is devoid of mental 
electricity. One thinks of nothing but his work; the other cannot keep 
his mind on his work, for it has nothing in it to excite him. Hence, he 
grows restless and mayhap revolutionary, as the employer would do 
if tasks were interchanged. A man working long hours at a self-appointed 
enterprise that is full of vibrant stimuli easily loses the point of view 
of other persons who are crushed beneath arduous tasks that possess 
no stimulating elements. With this loss in social understanding there 
depart one by one the possibilities of democratic leadership. 

The very exercise of social power tends to weaken a person’s spirit 

®C. R. Walker, Steel (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1922), p. vii. 


442 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





of democratic leadership. An illustration is the president of the United 
States. In this connection says Bruce Bliven: 


It is impossible not to swell a little when you are subtly reminded a thousand 
times a day of your own greatness, when your casual cough is worth a hundred 
feet of motion picture film, and it is a great event in the life of any fellow: 
citizen to be seen coming down a flight of steps with you.” 


One president of the Republic of China after another has started 
out as the exponent of democratic principles, but has become obsessed 
with the use of power and has turned out to be a menace.’® In the 
United States Jefferson and those of the Jeffersonian traditions have 
contended for the liberties of individuals and of states, and have feared 
a strong federal control, and yet when they have come into power, from 
Andrew Jackson or even Jefferson himself to President Wilson, they 
have “become converted to the idea of the powerful exercise of central 
authority and have out-Hamiltoned the Hamiltonians. And it has been 
equally curious that a man of the Hamilton tradition, when his party 
was out of power, has always been impressed by the terrible autocracy 
of the executive.” 

The influences due to exercising power often defeat one’s democratic 
tendencies. For example: 


The evolution of Boies Penrose is an amusing commentary upon American 
politics in more ways than one. Three years after he was graduated from 
Harvard College he was elected to the Pennsylvania Legislature on a reform 
ticket. His election was made the occasion for great rejoicing on the part 
of the good people of Philadelphia. And well might they rejoice. They had 
at last driven a wedge into a sinister political machine that had brought the 
city of brotherly love into disrepute as a boss-ridden municipality.” 


It is significant that James Bryce in the first edition of his American 
Commonwealth cited Penrose as an example of the sterling type of young 
Americans who were rescuing the municipal and state governments from 
the grip of the vicious boss system, and that in later editions of this book 
the name of Penrose as a reformer was expurgated.’* The exercise of 
power has produced new experiences, new social contacts, and new atti- 
tudes. The intoxication of power had turned the enemy of “bossism” 
into an arch-boss. 

The most promising democratic leaders in any country are not those 


*New Republic, XXXVI: 332. 
* Ibid., XXXVI: 328. 


“The Mirrors of Washington (Putnam, 1921), p. 234. 
* Ibid., p. 235. 


DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP 443 





who grow up in the peasant class and who afterwards receive professional 
or business training and then enter into political or religious leadership, 
but those who “having achieved an intellectual and social superiority over 
the average peasant class yet remain members of this class and continue 
to share all the interests of their class.” 1% It is the Lincoln type of man 
who maintains the principle of democratic leadership best. Because 
Lincoln maintained a warm sympathetic attitude he never fell from grace 
democratically speaking, he was able to recognize the secret doors in 
human walls, which he sooner or later discovered and passed through, 
going “unerringly to the place within those walls that was his.” 

The social psychology of exercising power is that of making a leader 
arbitrary and forgetful of the attitudes and experiences of those over 
whom it is exercised. Power-using habits are inimical to the exercise of 
sympathy, patience, and wholesomeness. A religious leader, preaching 
the spirit of love and meekness of Christ, easily falls into the habit of 
praying that “love may dominate in the world,” implying that love “lords 
it’ over people rather than serves. 

A leader may undertake a position of power fully determined to act 
democratically, but before long finds that sometimes it is easier to act 
for others than to get them to act. A leader becomes so efficient through 
practice that he grows disheartened in “breaking in” newcomers. He 
tends to shift to the practice of selecting a few trusted and capable lieu- 
tenants with instructions to act for the multitudes as they think best. And 
the multitude through lack of proper education, through being interested 
in matters of a close personal nature, through bewilderment at the com- 
plexity of a large-scale social organization are content to turn over their 
democratic sovereignty to aristocratic leaders, providing the social control 
conditions remain favorable and yield them a measure of enjoyment. Many 
factors, thus, operate to shift democratic leadership into autocratic 
channels. 

Democratic leadership produces results slowly. It takes time to train 
others to act efficiently. Tact and skill are necessary in getting persons 
to assume responsibility. The hopeful phase of this situation, however, 
is that in stimulating others to become leaders, they are being made new 
centers of influence. By putting responsibility upon worthy persons a 
leader may create a thousand other leaders. 

The autocratic leader may secure results quickly and rule reasonably 
well, but he will produce subservient followers rather than large numbers 


* Thomas and Znaniecki, The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (Badger, 
1920), IV: 185. 


444 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


of democratic leaders, and hence, his leadership will not remain permanent. 
The democratic leader, on the other hand, by following slower and more 
tedious processes of social stimulation, may train up a host of leaders 
who will carry forward democratically his ideals to countless people. The 
autocratic leader may create a remarkable organization and thus perpetuate > 
his personality for a time, but history shows, however, that social organ- 
izations built up under autocratic leadership lack the social sympathy 
and intelligent cooperation that is necessary for permanence. Democratic 
leadership, on the contrary, throbs with the spirit of love, and therefore 
naturally expands into immortal deeds of mutual helpfulness. 


EVOLUTION IN LEADERSHIP IDEALS 


The main shift in leadership ideals is from the autocratic to the paternal- 
istic, and then to the democratic. The autocratic has already been dis- 
cussed; the democratic will be considered in the chapter that follows; and 
the paternalistic will be mentioned here. 

The paternalistic leader is willing to do for others, but whenever and 
in whatever ways he pleases. Oftentimes he renders aid as a means of 
self-inflicted penance for wrongs he has committed. He is willing to 
help individuals, but not the whole group. He will help generously a se- 
lected few, but is unwilling to raise an entire class to his own social level. 
By helping a few he can quiet a conscience uneasy because of wrongs 
he has done; he receives much applause as a social benefactor, and at the 
same time the masses are left on a level on which they can be used and 
manipulated for the gain and power of those at the paternalistic apex. 

The paternalist does things for persons or even communities, but fails 
to create the means whereby persons or communities “may do for them- 
selves.” Paternalism weakens initiative. It makes devotees rather than 
self-reliant leaders. It results in a kind of slavery, putting its recipients 
under such obligation that they cannot say that their souls and minds 
are their own. “Every time the leader does something for the community 
it may do for itself, he prevents the community from developing its own 
resources.” 


PRINCIPLES 


1. Evidences of democratic leadership fall under eight headings: 
(1) increasing the opportunities for the development of other per- 
sons; (2) promoting the welfare of groups as such; (3) taking the 


DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP 445 


side of injustice against special privilege; (4) showing an at-one- 
ness with the humbler members of society; (5) consulting with 
authorities, even opponents before acting; (6) using the discussion 
method of securing adjustments; (7) showing the way and sacri- 
ficing self; and (8) rendering service without expectation of 
reward. 


. These evidences relate (1) to the goal which is sought, (2) to the 


manner of living of the leader, (3) to the manner of coming to 
decisions involving others, (4) to the manner of carrying out de- 
cisions, and (5) to the “motives” of the leader. 


. Arbitrary persons may falsely delude themselves into thinking that 


they are democratic leaders. 


. The continued exercise of social power tends to weaken a person’s 


spirit of democratic leadership. 


. Democratic leadership produces results slowly, because of its indirect 


methods. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. What is democratic leadership? 
. Why is democratic leadership more elusive than autocratic? 
. Why is Lincoln usually rated highest in a list of American democratic 


leaders ? 


. Why is it difficult for a democratic leader to remain democratic? 
. Why is it difficult for a bank president who has been a day laborer 


to understand day laborers’ attitudes, after he has risen to prom- 
inence ? 


. What is meant by the universality of democratic leadership? 
. Why does democratic leadership produce results slowly? 
. What is the chief advantage in getting others to do things for them- 


selves instead of doing things for them? 


. What is meant by the evolution in leadership ideals ? 
. Why do many leaders begin maturity as radicals and die conservatives ? 


PROBLEMS 


. Why is democratic leadership a theme of special importance? 
. What are the possibilities of scoring or grading the democracy of a 


person’s leadership? 


. What advantages might be gained from doing so? 


446 


FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





CON ON 


\o 


How would you rate in order of importance the five classes of demo- 
cratic leadership that are cited in this chapter? 


. Which would you rate higher, a democratic goal as such, or democratic 


methods? Why? ; 


. Which is easier, to lead democratically or autocratically ? 
. Which requires the greater ability? 
. Should an elected leader of the people really represent the wishes 


of his constituents, or should he exercise his own judgment? 


. Should leadership in the family be centered in one person, or should 


it be shared? 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Cooley, C. H., Human Nature and the Social Order (Scribners, 1922), 


Urea Line 


Ellwood, C. A., Christianity and Social Science (Macmillan, 1923), Ch. 


VIII. 


Mirrors of Washington (Putnam, 1921). 
Theodore Roosevelt, an Autobiography (Scribners, 1920), Chs. XII, XIII. 


i i i i 


CHAPTER XXXIX 
WEAUERSHIP' AND SOGIAL CHANGE 


OCIAL life is in a continuous flux. Human beings are developing 
or retrograding, and social relationships are integrating and expand- 
ing, or disintegrating and disappearing. Leaders are rising or falling; 
social processes are multiplying and becoming increasingly complex, or 
are shrinking and slowing up. Persons are continually making new asso- 
ciations and breaking up old ones. New habits, both personal and social, 
are being formed, and old ones being broken. Groups evolve, rise into 
societary prominence, and then succumb to internal weaknesses. Institu- 
tions are created, gather power, render service, and then are modified and 
merge into new ones. Social standards are formed today, and tomorrow 
others are substituted for them; social values today are and tomorrow are 
not. It is within these tides of incessant change that persons become 
leaders, and that leadership is nourished. Hence, an examination of social 
change may be expected to throw light on the nature of leadership. 
Social change comes about in a change of individual attitudes. R. H. 
Gault states that the change involved in progress “is essentially and in 
the very last analysis, an inner alteration of the personality of which other 
changes in the external relationship of persons may be signs.’? But this 
explanation does not account for “the inner alteration in personality.” 
There is doubtless a change in attitudes caused by personal experiences; it 
may be gradual, or abrupt, as in the case of conversion. One gives up 
certain values and accepts others, because (1) certain values lose their 
worth in meeting situations, or because (2) there has come about “a 
change in the individual’s scale of values,” * either gradually or otherwise. 
The change in one’s scale of values comes through his experiences and 
social contacts, that is, through stimuli from his associates. A person’s 
scale of values may expand from a given core, and thus change noticeably ; 
or they may move en masse gradually or suddenly. The reasons for this 
shifting vary according to persons and their environmental stimuli. 


* Social Psychology (Holt, 1923), p. 203. . 
*Cf. Hazel Kyrk, A Theory of Consumption (Houghton Mifflin, 1923), p. 235. 


447 


448 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





EVOLUTIONARY CHANGE 


The common form of change is evolutionary. What is evident among 
plants and animals is also true among human beings as individuals or as — 
groups—ordinarily they change slowly. Many, if not most of the common 
processes of change, are minute, invisible, gradual. Twenty years ago 
a given person was loyal to and in harmony with the “home town” folks ; 
today when he returns and converses with local friends of the olden day, 
he suddenly finds that he has changed, that he has less in common with the 
home folks, that owing to his new experiences (in the interim), he has 
been gradually drifting away from them. 

The voters of the United States will defeat the Republican candidate 
for president and at a subsequent date elect a less able man of the same 
party by an overwhelming majority. A change in social attitudes has 
taken place. Public opinion has shifted, but not all of the processes 
are evident or understood. 

Evolutionary social change, thus, is a phase of universal law; it is a 
characteristic of all life, of all social life. Being internal it is very difficult 
to understand. In both of the two main types of group change and 
progress—the slow and the rapid, the quiet and the disturbing, the evo- 
lutionary and the revolutionary—leadership is perhaps the main factor. 
If the leaders possess common sense, patience, personal flexibility, and 
social sympathy and vision, evolutionary change will likely prevail. With 
an educated membership and socially wise and courageous leaders revolu- 
tions are unnecessary. 

A truly evolutionary society maintains and encourages the spirit of 
constructive criticism. Its leaders are mentally alert and socially sen- 
sitive. They repudiate outworn ideas which have become deeply cherished 
by and firmly intrenched in the thinking of the privileged classes or of 
the masses. A group that grows steadily maintains leaders who believe 
in trying out new ideas. Leaders with new ideas must face a certain 
amount of opposition even in an evolutionary society, for human nature 
that is composed largely of habitual urges and mechanisms acts grudgingly 
toward strange and disturbing ideas. It has been well said that one of the 
greatest pains is the pain of a new idea, but it is to such ideas and to 
leaders representing them that genuine evolutionary societies grant open 
hearings. History is full of painful new ideas which have been ultimately 
accepted, and for which brave-hearted leaders have lived and perhaps died. 

Migration is a common factor in gradual social change. When a farmer 


LEADERSHIP AND SOCIAL CHANGE 449 


moves from Iowa to California he leaves behind much of the old furniture 
and bric-a-brac and some of the old traditions. From the moment of 
his arrival he is frequently “‘shocked.” Old methods are soon found to 
be out of place in the new environment; one feels helpless and assumes 
a followership attitude. New social stimuli exert an influence on him 
until one by one and at tremendous mental cost, personal changes are 
made. Five years later, newcomers from Iowa are astounded at the 
changes in their former neighbors, who have responded to the call of 
new leaders and new social conditions. If individuals migrate in the 
early years of life, then they readily fall under new-leadership. 

Often the newcomers bring new ideas and are themselves leaders. 
Sometimes a virile immigration will awaken a stagnant community, es- 
pecially if the immigration is from a new to an old community. When 
immigration moves from an old and proud community to a new and 
virile one, then there ig a clash. In haughty self-sufficiency the leaders 
from the old attempt to “show”’ the leaders in the new. Such a struggle 
is often bitter and is apt to end either in prolonged strife or else in a new 
coordination of the old and the new. At any rate, under almost any condi- 
tions of immigration, there usually is interstimulation between immigrant 
and native which sooner or later gives a new spirit to one or the other, 
or to both and the community. 

Invention is normally a phase of social evolution, for new ideas are the 
initiating centers of change and the essence of leadership. From these 
moving dynamic centers, the elements of progress normally pulsate and 
produce irregular but continual advances. Inventions in details are more 
easily accepted than inventions of radical departures, and hence small 
scale inventions are more conducive to evolutionary change than large 
scale ones. Social evolution is more or less continual change in small items, 
thus obviating the necessitiy of a wholesale uprooting and re-casting. 

Imitation is essential to evolutionary change, for without it new ideas 
would not be copied and leaders would not be’ followed. Moreover, as 
noted in an earlier chapter,* no one imitates a copy exactly; hence, in each 
imitation, modification occurs and each modification may become a new 
pattern; in the particular, these changes are small; in the aggregate they 
are powerful and world moving. 

Evolutionary social change is generally characterized by compromise. 
In recent decades in England whenever the agencies of social unrest gain 
sufficient strength to threaten a serious disturbance, a Lloyd George ap- 
pears with concessions strong enough to satisfy temporarily the liberals 

* Chapter XII. 


450 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





and yet of such character that the conservatives grudgingly grant them. 
The situation then runs somewhat smoothly until another social disturb- 
ance occurs. Thus England has been advancing because her leaders are 
successful in making adjustments between the forces of evolution and 
revolution. Her experience proves the dictum of Turgot that “well-timed 
reform alone averts revolution.” 

It is by leaders who effect compromises between the old and the new 
that evolutionary change is best advanced. In the words of J. M. 
Williams: 

Social progress has taken place as a result of impulsive unrest and resistance 
of lower classes, to alleviate which compromises have been effected by officials 
and politicians who sought thereby to win or hold the support of the non- 
propertied voters by a minimum of yielding to their demands, and to keep 


the confidence of the propertied classes by maintaining, as far as possible, 
their traditional privileges.’ 


In the long run evolutionary change is revolutionary; that is, it leads 
to gigantic changes. It seems to take a longer time than revolution; 
it gives the time necessary for the establishment of new ways of habitual 
thinking and for the proper transmission, examination, and adaptation of 
the best social values. Evolution, thus, is not revolutionary in purpose 
but ultimately amounts to revolution. “It is true,” says Tannenbaum, 
“that all organized labor is revolutionary. It cannot continue to function, 
to grow, to become powerful as a labor movement without ultimately 
displacing the capitalist system.” ® 

Evolutionary change often harbors revolutionary gyrations. Restless- 
ness and a sense of injustice are always possible in an evolutionary society, 
and hence small revolutionary whirlpools spring up. If the leaders are 
socially wise, they see these small revolutionary movements as symptoms, 
examine them sympathetically, and, if real grievances are found, will 
provide appropriate changes. 


REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE 


When evolutionary change is thwarted, then revolutionary change is J 
the only alternative in a group whose rank and file have not been wholly 
crushed by autocracy. Autocratic leaders may arise in any field, political, 
economic, religious, educational, and stifle evolutionary advance. Their 
most effective aid is probably found in control through traditions and 


*The Foundations of Social Science (Knopf, 1920), p. 150. 
*The Labor Movement (Putnam, 1921), p. 125. 


LEADERSHIP AND SOCIAL CHANGE 451 





customs. These are impersonal; ean be taught in the early uncritical 
years and they enable autocratic leaders to escape blame for being auto- 
cratic, and hence to avoid for a time the wrath of the multitude. 

While customs insure group continuity and constitute a large part of 
social heredity, they often infringe overmuch on individuals; and they 
outlive their usefulness. They may grow cumbersome and constricting 
tentacles, and may grip so hard that life is strangled. Although traditions 
are vital to group unity and progress, yet they may stifle the very spirit 
which gave them their original power. As hindrances they affect the 
nature of change—shifting it from evolutionary to revolutionary; and 
they play into the hands‘ of autocratic leaders. Think of the struggles 
against traditions and autocracy which have been necessary before “new 
ideas” such as the following have been accepted: 

That the earth is round. 

That slavery is undemocratic. 

That women are entitled to vote. 


That laboring men may organize. 
That a League of Nations should be established. 


Revolutionary change comes belatedly; it develops only when evolu- 
tionary methods fail or do not have opportunity. If provisions for group 
change are not made in a dynamic society by the leaders, then the repressed 
forces will ferment and, gathering momentum, will burst their bonds. 

Wielders of group authority are sometimes so shortsighted as to make 
the group organization static. Then they encyst themselves in this organ- 
ization as it were, and having gormandized on social power they go to 
sleep—until the social explosion comes and the “top” of society is blown 
off by revolution. 

When social institutions become inflexible and power-holders arbitrary, 
revolutionary attempts may be expected. Autocratic leaders at once raise 
the cry of “Revolution,” or “Reds,” and temporarily win the support of 
the timid or the unthinking among the multitudes. In a democracy, auto- 
cratic leaders put on the screws of repression; in an autocracy, they are 
more at home and use bullets freely. The firing squad silences agitators, 
thus granting autocracy undisputed sway. 

The causal factors preceding revolutionary change are manifold; four 
will be mentioned here. 1. Jntellectual stagnation of the leaders holds 
back a whole group, even a nation, and disgusts the more intelligent fol- 
lowers. Sometimes a military expedition in war fails because those at the 
head are incompetents. Individuals in political and social authority often 
lack the mental vision to encompass the needs, yearnings, and secret plot- 


452 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





tings of the masses; they remain in power until thrust aside by blind social 
upheavals. Preceding the French Revolution an intellectual and privi- 
leged class developed a notorious stupidity. In order to be admitted into 
this crusted aristocracy and hence into social control, it was necessary for 
an individual to have sixteen “noble ancestors.” This simpleton attitude 
was only one of many evidences of mental stagnation which had blighted 
the aristocracy and led to the social explosion called the French Revolution. 

2. Political auwtocracy is one of many concrete expressions of that 
mental stagnation among leaders which precedes social revolution. Polit- 
ical autocracy caused the American Revolution, for the repeated protests 
of the American colonists against the traditional political unfairness of 
England were not heeded by King George. Political autocracy by the 
Czar and his régime was ruthless in the use of the firing squad and the 
exile, but it could not stave off revolution when the Czarist officers in 
the army should be killed in battle and their places taken by officers from 
the proletariat ranks, thus swinging the army into the hands of the 
grossly abused masses. 

“Truth,” according to a prominent editor of Madrid, “is an exile from — 
the political world (Spain).”® “If the matter is well analyzed,” says 
Gomez, “it will be seen that at the bottom of each party, whatever its 
name may be, lie not pure ideas but material interests, more or less 
covered,” 7 indicating the close relation of intellectual stagnation and 
autocracy. Moreover, the Spanish nobility, as is always the case when 
entrenched privilege rules, react against protests or social unrest by crying 
“revolution,” rather than by accepting their social obligations. 

3. Economic oligarchy is often a powerful adjunct of political autoc- 
racy and another example of how stupidity on the part of leaders precipi- 
tates revolutions. Feudalism was a system of economic oligarchy which 
included not only material property rights but also the souls and bodies 
of all the “people.” It finally crumpled before the revolutionary forces 
which it had forgotten by its own disregard of the needs and longings 
of the serfs. In modern monarchies economic oligarchy has maintained 
an octopus-like hold upon the “subjects” until the bravest of these victims 
have been sacrificed, and until the masses have risen in revolt. Eco- 
nomic oligarchy lurks in the shadows of even a “democratic” government. 

4. Religious cant and dogmatism by able but blind leaders have 
produced many religious revolutions. Religious dogmatism has often 
ruled nations, especially where church and state have been combined, 


* Nuevo Mundo, Feb. 27, 1910. 
"Castilla en Escombras, p. 109. 


LEADERSHIP AND SOCIAL CHANGE 453 


until the “blind leaders of the blind” have been overthrown by those 
who have defied denunciations and persecutions. At times religion has 
tended to become inflexible and suppressive of honest dissenters. Witness 
the Spanish Inquisition. The conservatism of the Church of Rome led to 
revolts that produced Lutheranism; and of the Church of England, to 
revolts culminating in Congregationalism and Wesleyanism. 

Revolutionary change is mentally and socially expensive. Progress may 
ultimately result, but the cost of social explosions in wrecking mental 
stability and sanity as well as social attitudes is excessive. Revolutions 
are usually followed by periods of chaos, out of which order and progress 
may emerge only belatedly. An immediate effect is a disastrous loss of 
respect for law and order, which brings in its train countless other evils. 

Revolution breeds violence; it creates more revolution—and the end 
may be the destruction gf many of the virtues of civilization as well as 
evils. Revolutionists, as professional leaders, are prone to thrive on social 
disturbances, even when these maladjustments are breeding continued dis- 
order and insanity of judgment. After overthrowing an old order, rev- 
olutionists often profit by living upon the resources of a disinherited 
oligarchy. If revolutionary leaders have fought for decades against an 
established order, they are apt to have developed the same autocratic ways 
as those of the overthrown despots. It is only by great restraint that 
they can wait on evolutionary change and develop truly democratic 
methods of social control, for in addition to developing habits of demo- 
cratic procedure they must deal with the lurking, plotting frauds of the 
deposed order. 

Unless revolutionists when acquiring power become social evolutionists 
they will sooner or later create disorder, mistrust, and anarchy. Then, 
social progress must start all over again and be built up painfully step 
by step. 

The revolutionist or radical assumes change in the habits of people 
to be easy, but here he makes a grave mistake. He ignores the fact that 
habits are not only difficult to change but that they have been made in 
an environment of custom and according to custom designs. Original 
nature supplies the raw materials and customs furnish the machinery 
and the designs *—habits are the products. It is a weakness, therefore, 
to begin with established habits. “A new generation must come on the 
scene whose habits have been formed under the new conditions.” ® 

A group aroused to self preservation tends to exert pressure first 


*John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct (Holt, 1923), p. 110. 
°Tbid., p. 109. 


454: FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


upon its most vigorous members who are dissenting from “the established 
order.” The group does not easily distinguish between its benefactor 
leaders and its exploiter leaders, who are all too prone to parade in 
sheep’s clothing and to manipulate the feelings of the people. The group 
crushes out its conscientious objectors, without observing that nearly 
all these persons possess the very courage that makes any group strong 
and that generally their sincerity is distinctly above the average.1° By 
blind and even fiendish methods of repression certain leaders representing 
entrenched group control sow the seeds of discontent that ultimately 
produce revolution. 


CONFLICT, CHANGE, AND LEADERSHIP 


Conflict is a disturbing but necessary element in social change. It is 
conflict and crisis which awaken individuals and make them active. Con- 
flict sharpens social interactions and prompts creativeness. It breaks 


asunder thick crusts of custom. It throws leaders against one another, 


stimulating them to their greatest efforts. 

Conflict is often started by narrow-minded leaders, and thus change 
becomes turmoil. An illustration is given by Wissler in referring to the 
relations of certain missionaries and teachers with the Indian problem. 


Being not the least conscious of culture processes, they were chagrined at 
the indifference of the Indian to the ownership and conservation of property 
and particularly to the idea of inheritance from father to son. In most cases 
the poor Indian could not see the point at all. The facts are that these well- 
intentioned missionaries, the advance agents to the diffusion of Euro-American 
culture, were not aware that they were seeking to spread a borrowed form 
of Roman law, slightly warped to fit the needs of their own once barbarous 
forefathers and that the Indian had quite a different form of jurisprudence 
into which this would in no wise fit.* 


Conflict, as a phase of social change, may be held by the leaders within 
the bounds of socialized rules, of socially productive activities; or, as 


is more likely, it may be allowed to descend quickly to the levels of prej- 


udice, hatred, and brutality. It is an important function of scientific 
leadership to keep conflict upon socially productive planes and to raise 
it from level to level—physical, mental, spiritual, and socialized. 


* See C. M. Case, Non-Violent Coercion (Century, 1922), pp. 404 ff. 
“Man and Culture (Crowell, 1923), p. 190. 
“Cf. Chapter on “Group Conflict.” 


en. 


LEADERSHIP AND SOCIAL CHANGE 455 


COOPERATION, CHANGE, AND LEADERSHIP 


Codperation, as evidenced by an increasing number of organizations, 
small and large, is of increasing importance in social change. The codp- 
erative spirit and the spirit of good will will function largely in solving 
many deadlocked situations, in making unnecessary that large percentage 
of conflicts which are on the whole destructive. 

Progressive social change depends on an increase of the codperative 
spirit among all. To the extent that groups are naturally competitive, 
leaders have a definite function to perform in standing for rational codp- 
eration. The progress of any group of size depends partially upon 
cooperation among the constituent groups in behalf of the common 
welfare. 

In a similar way the’progress of the world depends on codperation 
between large group units. Any world order is clearly unstable that 
rests upon sixty or more sovereign groups, each deciding what is right, 
honorable, and just for the other fifty-nine, and each regulated in 
its actions by no inclusive authority. The nature of social change during 
the last hundred years or so, indicates the need for a set of generally 
accepted planetary values, a thriving world opinion, an organization 
of the friendship of the world, and a smoothly functioning Association of 
Nations. A needed telic program along democratic lines for world 
harmony, justice, and progress offers a field of unlimited service for 
high-minded, broad-visioned leaders. If it is necessary and wise 
to have socialized leadership in the community, city, church, school, 
business organization, and nation, how much greater is the need and 
the wisdom of a leadership that is consciously working toward world 
progress? 

If national leaders continue to move upon the destructive levels of 
physical combat, secret alliances, balances of power, competitive con- 
sumption rather than choosing the slowly ascending paths of productive 
competition and social benefit, social change is doomed to be sterile. 
If the national units may each give a portion of its power to a world- 
inclusive organization that shall make the rules for all forms of national 
interaction, then national leaders may be expected to act according to the 
rules of the world society and within the bounds determined by econom- 
ically productive and socially constructive world standards. 

The call for democratic leadership with cooperative ideals was never 
greater than today. A world of seething unrest and social change, of 


456 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





stirring on the part of the masses, is in urgent need of a capable leadership 
that serves without looking for “political plums,” social power, economic 
domination, or any other reward. 


PRIVATE AND PUBLIC LEADERS 


Private initiative and public control are complementary. Private 
and public forces are in constant interaction. In all fields of human 
endeavor private associations and their leaders are needed to experiment 
with new ideas, to initiate new movements, and to prod up public 
agents, keeping them upon efficiency levels. The public, or official, 
organizations are needed to represent all factions and to carry forward 
activities which all agree upon. The competition between these two 
types of procedures and leaders is widely beneficial if socially harnessed 
and directed. 

Private leadership needs to be. free to criticize wholesomely the public 


or governmental organizations. When social control sends to jail all. 


who honestly oppose it, progress has been thwarted. The leaders of 
the political party in control need to face the honest criticism of the public 
and of the leaders of the parties not in control. Hopeful, prosperous 
people believe in individual effort and private enterprise; hopeless people 
believe in collective activities, in overturning the government, in rioting. 

Governmental and private ownership of economic enterprises are both 
essential. Neither in itself contains all the elements of sustained prog- 
ress. One represents the public interest and the other fosters private 
initiative. With all the economic resources owned and operated by the 
government a powerful class control might easily result and private 
leadership be eliminated. With all economic resources owned by a few 
gigantic interlocking monopolies, governmental leaders are subject to over- 
whelming pressure and public welfare is rendered subservient to the 
caprices of the privileged few. It is said that the price of wheat at the 
present writing is below one dollar because of “a conspiracy of grain men, 


annoyed because the Supreme Court upheld the federal statute prohibiting 


gambling.” Where private corporation leaders become dominant they 
can force government leaders to knuckle down before them. 
It would seem, therefore, that wholesome social change is subserved by 


the dual existence of public and private economic organizations. Neither — 


complete socialism nor complete individualism alone will guarantee prog- 


ae 


LEADERSHIP AND SOCIAL CHANGE 457 


ress; for neither by itself allows for that widespread stimulation and that 
universality of leadership which is essential to prolonged achievement. 


SOCIAL CHANGE AND DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP 


It would appear that the type of social change which prevails is more 
dependent upon the quality of leadership than any other single factor. 
Leaders direct the processes of social control. They become entrenched 
as masters not only of power, social, political, economic, religious, but 
most important of all, they control the educational processes and can 
direct the attitudes of a whole generation of little children, and hence 
of the leaders as well as of the masses of succeeding generations. 

The individual particularizes ; the group generalizes upon these particu- 
larizations and inventions. The individual thus is a leader; not here 
and there one, but nearly all are potential leaders in the sense of being 
able to influence the conduct of other persons. Persons are pulsating 
centers of influence; many of these influences are reacted to favorably, 
and thus the whole level of group welfare is raised. Leadership thus is 
democratic in that it may come from the people themselves; it is also 
democratic to the extent that leaders give people opportunities to choose 
for themselves, rather than choose for the people and carry out these 
choices by fiat. 

Progress is determined by the amount, quality, and methods of control 
that are exercised by the leaders in charge at any particular time. It 
depends upon the extent, quality, and persistence of personal initiative 
and inventiveness. It is dependent upon the kind and quality of encour- 
agement as well as of restraint which the current leaders, acting for the 
group, exercise over the membership. 

At best, there is always an amount of “cultural lag,’ ?* which means 
that spiritual progress takes place more slowly than material. Material 
inventions are made and then time is required before people get spiritually 
adjusted to using them properly. The “changes in the adaptive culture 
do not synchronize exactly with the change in the material culture. There 
is a lag which may last for varying lengths of time, sometimes, indeed, 
for many years.”14 The material conditions with reference to the forests 
have changed so that now we need to conserve them, but exploitation 
methods (adaptive culture) still persist.1° It is at this point that the 

*W. F. Ogburn, Social Change (Huebsch, 1922), p. 199. 


4 Tbid., p. 203. 
* Ibid., p. 206. 


458 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





criminaloid flourishes.1® The criminaloid is often a reputable citizen who 
takes advantage of inventions, not only of things, but of new ideas and 
uses them to his own gain and against the welfare of other persons 
before public opinion becomes organized regarding social and anti-social 


methods of using these and before laws can be passed and put into © 


operation. 

By educational means the members of any group may be raised to that 
plane where they may determine the direction that current social changes 
may take. They may choose the types of social control which their 
leaders shall exercise—to the extent that the leadership ability and respon- 
sibility of all is raised by educational methods toward the level of leader- 
ship activity of the persons in charge. As the chasm between the ability 
of the leaders and of the mass decreases, democracy functions with in- 
creasing worth. 

A group that illustrates democratic principles of leadership emphasizes 
stimulative rather than repressive control, putting liberal premiums upon 
personal initiative that seeks social welfare without expectation of reward. 
The highest lines of telic social advance of any group lie in the direction 
of world-wide human welfare. 

Such a trend involves the development of socialized thinking upon the 
part of all—leaders and potential leaders alike. Socialized thinking that 
is worth while results in conduct habitually performed in behalf of social 
welfare without expectation of reward. It produces a willingness to 
recognize and encourage ability wherever found—under any color of 
skin or on any social level. It leads to active democracy. Socialized 
feeling, thinking, and acting creates rich, stimulative, and well-balanced 
persons and groups alike, and alone guarantees social changes that are 
synonymous with progress. 

Progressive social change involves the principle: “It is better to travel 
than to arrive, . . . because traveling is constant arriving, while arrival 
that precludes further traveling is most easily attained by going to sleep 
or dying.” 17 It is the principle of never being satisfied with the 
achievement of ideals, of never completing one’s education in any 
particular, 

Progressive social change also includes the principle of liberating all 
persons, enlarging the meaning of life for them,’® and expanding and 
deepening their sense of social responsibility. 


. E. A. Ross, Sin and Society (Houghton Mifflin, 1907). 
John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct (Holt, 1923), p. 254. 
* Tbid., Pp, 293. 


| 
| 
| 
| 





LEADERSHIP AND SOCIAL CHANGE 459 


PRINCIPLES 


. Leadership is nourished and developed amidst social changes. 


2. Evolutionary change being gradual provides for new human needs 


mn pW 


rag OF 


12. 


with a minimum of social disturbances. 


. Immigration is a normal stimulant of evolutionary change. 
. Evolutionary social change is characterized by countless compromises. 
. Autocratic leadership blocks evolutionary changes and makes neces- 


sary violent social explosions if the needs of the masses are to be 
met. 


. Revolutionary change is always belated. 
. Intellectual stagnation hinders all change. 
. Political autocracy, economic oligarchy, religious dogmatism, all are 


enemies of evolutionary change. 


. Revolutionary change destroys social virtues along with the evils. 
. Conflict, an essential element in stimulating needed social changes, 


naturally tends to be destructive, and hence to offset all gains it 
produces unless the leaders recognize and stand against the danger. 

Private and public organizations in the same fields of endeavor are 
essential to prolonged progress, provided all are guided by the in- 
terests of the larger group of which they are a part or which they 
represent. 

The translation of social change into genuine progress rests most 
largely upon a socialized leadership. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. What is evolutionary social change? 
. How does migration affect social change? 
. Under what conditions are immigrants apt to lead and when are they 


apt to be led? 


. What is the relation of compromise to evolutionary change? 
. When is mental stagnation most dangerous to a group? 
. Why are some religious leaders opposed to the idea of social evo- 


lution ? 


. Why does revolution breed violence? 
_ After a revolution has been achieved, wherein lies the revolutionist’s 


salvation as a future leader? 


. What is the relation of conflict to progress? 


460 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


10. Is cooperation compatible with conflict ? 
11. When is evolution revolutionary ? 
12. Why is socialized leadership so vital to progress? 


PROBLEMS 


1. “Indicate some changes that are not progressive.” 

2. What is social change? 

3. Why are political autocracy and economic oligarchy usually found 

together ? 

4. Are the needs of persons always in line with group advancement? 

Give instances. 
. Are the needs of the nation always in the direction of world progress? 
Illustrate. 

. Explain: “When everybody thinks alike, nobody thinks at all.” 

. Why is it unsound to be either an “individualist” or a “socialist” in 

matters involving human progress? 

8. Does life in the United States today abridge one’s opportunities for 
believing and judging, and “increase one’s opportunities for doing 
and acting’’? 

g. Illustrate natural social progress. 

10. Illustrate telic social progress. 

11. What is the chief cause of social revolution? 

12. What is the greatest danger in revolution? 

13. Does revolution ever occur if the leaders provide for evolution to take 
place reasonably fast? 

14. What is the chief difference between leaders of social evolution and 
those of social revolution? 

15. What is the main advantage of social evolution? 

16. What is the chief function of leadership? 


on 


mest § m2" 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Bernard, L. L., “The Conditions of Social Progress,” Amer. Jour. of 
Sociology, XXVIII: 21-48. 

Bosanquet, Helen, “The Psychology of Social Progress,” Intern. Jour. of 
Ethics, VII: 25-81. 

Bristol, L. M., Social Adaptation (Harvard Univ. Press, 1915). 

Cooley, John, “Progress,” Intern. Jour. of Ethics, 26: 311-22. 


LEADERSHIP AND SOCIAL CHANGE 461 


Hayes, E. C., Introduction to the Study of Sociology (Appleton, 1916), 
Part III. 

Keller, A. G., Societal Evolution (Macmillan, 1915). 

Kidd, Benjamin, Social Evolution (Macmillan, 1894). 

Ogburn, W. F., Social Change, (Huebsch, 1922). 

Todd, A. J., Theories of Social Progress (Macmillan, 1918). 

Yarros, V. S., “Human Progress: the Idea and the Reality,” Amer. Jour. 


of Soctology, XXI1: 15-29. 


CHAPTER) AL 
LEADERSHIP AND WORLD PROGRESS 


1B etnias have given their lives to local, state, and national progress, 
but few have concentrated on world progress. Of these few, a large 
percentage, such as Alexander, Julius Cesar, Napoleon, Wilhelm II, have 
dreamed of world progress in terms of personal control. On the other 
hand, a small percentage, chiefly religious leaders and notably the Founder 
of Christianity, have sought world progress without desiring personal 
gain; they have made the Great Sacrifice. Their support has been and 
still is wholly inadequate. World-minded leaders need world-minded fol- 
lowers; both are essential to world progress. 

Intersocial stimulation and response on a world basis is a logical phase 
of social evolution. The expanding scope of intersocial stimulation is 
evidenced by the historical succession of horde, tribe, tribal confederacy, 
city-state, feudal state, monarchical state, and democratic nation-state. 
The next step will be perhaps a world leadership and a world community 
loyalty which will maintain and enrich national loyalties, but, more im- 
portant, will give’a whole new emphasis to social evolution. A small 
but increasing number of persons are attaining a scale of world attitudes. 
Although the existing world organizations are nearly all voluntary, with 
little power of enforcing rules in a world-wide way; and although they 
are functioning largely as social units in their own behalf rather than in 
specific support of world community, they are nevertheless manned by 
leaders who are creating a world opinion. 

There are religious, business, scientific, and literary leaders who have 
leaped the boundaries of nations in their thinking, and have begun to es- 
tablish world-wide contacts. Foreign travel, the universal language of 
the motion picture, international press associations are indirectly pushing 
forward the processes of world interstimulation. Improvements in rapid 
communication, including radio telegraphy and telephony are annihilating 
mental as well as geographic distances between population centers and 
bringing civilization closer together daily around a world conference table. 

Studies of business cycles are revealing that “the forces which, in the 
long run, control the trend of prices, are world-wide rather than national 

462 





LEADERSHIP AND WORLD PROGRESS 463 


in scope.” * Basic social conditions are the same the world over. Human 
wants are multiplied and met the world around by the observance of 
the same basic social psychological principles. Business, moreover, is 
pushing its activities to the ends of the earth; labor, also, is establishing 
“internationales.” 

The essential unity of human minds everywhere has been recognized.? 
The social patterns of life that are common to all peoples of the earth, 
testify again to world unity.* “It is because the same relations in com- 
munication, thought, and tools everywhere prevail that the cultures of 
the world have the same form and manifest the same processes. This 
is what is meant by the universal pattern.”* The unity of mental 
processes among all peoples, and the diffusion theory of the spread of 
culture forecast the day when the world will have one culture and one 
civilization, not monotonous but variant in expressions. 

Grotius and his successors who have developed international law have 
had a world vision. The Hague Tribunal, although helpless in a real 
international crisis, has been a step toward world community. The 
members of the League to Enforce Peace, although curiously stressing the 
idea of enforcing peace had a world ideal in mind. Those who established 
and who have maintained the League of Nations are advocates of world 
progress. President Harding through the Washington Conference on 
Limitation of Armaments, which was based on the dubious principle that 
independent nations should come to agreements on world matters without 
giving up even a small degree of sovereignty to a world organization, may 
be credited with promoting the growth of a world opinion, a world con- 
science, and an open world diplomacy. 

At best, however, the efforts of all the leaders of international law 
and of world peace are likely to break down because of the absence of an 
adequate coercive world opinion to compel a self-centered nation to obey. 
Moreover, the absence of a tangible world concept in the minds of national 
leaders prevents them from judging their official acts in the light of 
world needs, and thus prompts them, as the German people were led, 
to postulate false national values. 

Before any leaders with wholesome world attitudes can succeed in estab- 
lishing a practical League or Association of Nations, the majority of 
the people in the leading nations will need to learn the meaning of the 
concept of the world as a social group, to think in world terms, and for 


1R. T. Ely, Outlines of Economics (Macmillan, 1923), p. 
?Franz Boas, The Mind of Primitive Man (Macmillan, i i Chu Ly, 
§Clark Wissler, Man and Culture (Crowell, 1923), Ch. V 


*Ibid., p. 97. 


464 | FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





a period of time long enough to enable such attitudes to become habitually 
established. They will need to learn to judge the acts of their respective 
nations in terms of world welfare, but this they cannot do until local, 
provincial, and national thinking is supplemented by world thinking. 
There is an abundance of local minds, but only a few world minds cap- 
able of grasping the details of world problems in their full significance. 
World minds are the natural results of thinking about world problems. 

Despite the progress that is being made, the people of the different 
leading nations have not sensed the meaning of world community. There 
are leaders and advocates of Western civilization and of Eastern civiliza- 
tion; the differences between the two civilizations, not the likenesses, are 
receiving the attention of hectic and spectacular movements on both sides 
of the Pacific. The ordinary leaders and members of the Western social 
order are widely proclaiming the superiority of Western civilization. 
They fail to study, either at all or with unprejudiced minds, the worthy 
points of Eastern development; they see chiefly its defects. They even 
do not feel humble because of the weaknesses of Western life. Likewise, 
many of the leaders of Eastern life are silently and politely feeling a 
sense of pity for Western chauvinists. Rabindranath Tagore freely ex- 
presses himself in terms of scorn for the greed of Western society; while 
another leader, Gandhi, openly repudiates many Western fundamentals. 

Leaders are needed to develop the best traits of Western civilization. 
and of Eastern society; they are also needed to synthesize these best 
traits of Western and Eastern cultures, and other leaders to educate 
the peoples of the whole world in the practice of world values. 

A worthy trail in the analysis of the best traits of Occidental civili- 
zation has been blazed by Charles A. Ellwood.’ Following his pioneer 
work we may say that the social values in Occidentalism are of two 
classes, those derived from ancient life and those from modern (nine- 
teenth and twentieth century) times. The two divisions contain four and 
three sets of factors respectively. (1) A set of ethical and religious 
values was derived from the Hebrews and early Christians. In the former 
the major concept is justice; and in the latter, love. (2) A number of 
philosophical and esthetic values was contributed by the Greeks. (3) A 
set of administrative and legal values, stressing the rights of property, 
originated with the Romans. (4) A set of personal liberty values was 
developed by the early Teutons and given concrete modern expression 
under the laissez faire doctrine of the nineteenth century in Western 
Europe and the United States. Within recent decades three additional 

“The Social Problem (Macmillan, 1919), Ch. II. 





LEADERSHIP AND WORLD PROGRESS 465 


values have been produced by Occidentalism, namely, (5) scientific 
methods, (6) business and industrial techniques, and (7) as an antidote 
to economic extremes, humanitarian values. 

For purposes of building a new synthetic set of world values, the fol- 
lowing analysis of Orientalism may be suggested. Orientalism is known 
(1) for its self-sacrifice values, which makes Occidentalism seem to the 
Oriental synonymous with organized selfishness. (2) There is the con- 
templativeness of Orientalism culminating in metaphysics. (3) In the 
East there is custom veneration, for parents, for established ways, for 
the naturally and socially stable phases of life, and for law and order. 
(4) There is a set of human courtesy and appreciative values, crystalliz- 
ing in conventional standards. (5) Orientalism is esthetic and mystically, 
not rationalistically, philosophic. (6) Orientalism is noted for its sense 
of social solidarity, which produces a strong sentiment of local and social 
obligation. The social group and its standards are the major concepts 
and the individual, the minor. In the East the family group is the unit, 
as compared with the individual in the West. (7) The Oriental lives 
in generalizations rather than in particularizations—a principle which is 
fundamental to the Oriental’s other traits. 

When the positive elements in Western and Eastern civilizations are 
brought together, certain conflicts are evident. For example: 


The rational versus the mystically philosophic. 
Particularization versus generalization. 

The individual over against the family unit, 
Horizontal love versus vertical love. 

Facts versus concepts. 

Individualism versus solidarity. 

Personality versus impersonality. 

Liberty versus formality. 

Action versus contemplation. 

Finding versus losing. 

Dominating versus appreciating. 

Acquiring versus understanding. 

The physical versus the psychical. 

Anxiety versus tranquillity. 

The means of life versus the sake of living. 


These contrasts, some of which have been analyzed by scholars such 
as Inazo Nitobe and K. S. Inui, upon reflection provide bases for build- 
ing a world community that will be superior to either Eastern or Western 
civilization. Many are complements rather than opposites, which may 
be fitted together into bigger and broader concepts than have yet been 
thought out. 


466 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 





Some of these apparent contrasts are but the opposite phases of the 
same spiritual phenomena. “The differences are superficial in character. 
Beneath the contrasts is a genuine unity. Many represent simply differ- 
ences in degree. For example: the rationalist is also a mystic, but less 
mystical than the true mystic. The latter is also a rationalist, but less 
of a rationalist than the true rationalist. He who particularizes also 
generalizes, but less so than does the true generalizationist; the latter 
in turn also particularizes but to a lesser degree than does the thorough- 
going particularist. Thus we might continue throughout the list of con- 
trasts. After all, both Occidentalism and Orientalism are the products 
of a universal group life in which human beings are born, reared, and 
matured. In fundamentals there is an amazing similarity. The color 
of skin, the slant of the eye, and the shape of the shin bone may vary; 
social heritages have become widely different: but inherited predisposi- 
tions and processes of developing attitudes are similar. 

The laws of human nature, whether of the East or West, are evidently 
of the same pattern as the laws of physical nature and the universe. 
In these realms we find harmony built out of so-called opposites. The’ 
centrifugal and centripetal forces operate to produce a universe, and the 
laws of heredity and of variation function together in producing stand- 
ardized species and races. If we hold to the theory that ours is a dual- 
istic universe, we may say also that it is a uni-verse. There is one har- 
mony, and within this harmony there are two general sets of apparently 
contradictory elements, centripetal and centrifugal, heredity and variation, 
stability and change, evolution and revolution, individualism and _ soli- 
darity, conflict and codperation, hate and love. The advocates of a 
world progress that is based on the idea of world community, believe in 
a synergizing of Occidentalism and Orientalism; this belief seems to be 
in harmony with the principles of the physical universe and of social 
logic alike. 

Some of the actual contacts that are being made between Orientalism 
and Occidentalism have been unfortunate. Commercial traders, such as 
opium and rum dealers from Western countries have often belied the 
best phases of Christianity and brought reproach upon constructive 
Western principles. The impact of Western industrialism and Western 
freethinking has frequently had disintegrating Eastern effects, producing 
a “common loss of equilibrium.” ® Western ideas of democracy are up- 
setting the force of Eastern traditionalism. 


*Cf. M. Anasaki, The Religious and Social Problems of the Orient (Macmillan, 
1923), Chs. III and IV. 


LEADERSHIP AND WORLD PROGRESS 467 


Christian missionaries have been carrying Western ideas to Eastern 
peoples, but in recent years Eastern religious leaders have been reacting 
unfavorably. China has been asking for a chance to develop a Chinese 
Christianity rather than have an American interpretation forced on her. 
Buddhist leaders are adopting the American Sunday School idea and 
other western methods. astern nations are asking for autonomy in 
changing their social cultures even in its religious phases. 

In Western countries, Orientalism has not exerted a wide influence, for 
Eastern visitors have come as students not as leaders pressing ideas and 
methods on Occidentalism. 


WORLD VALUES 


It now remains to examine some of the values upon which world 
leaders are basing their hopes. 1. The world as a single community is 
becoming psychically one faster than racially one. If mankind had a 
common origin, he dispersed in various directions over the earth. In 
migrating, man encountered different environments, and became differen- 
tiated into races and cultures. The cultures are now being united.’? The 
inventions in communication have brought the people of the world into 
close contact, and made possible the production of a world civilization. 
The common culture will perhaps always show marked variations, but 
its unity is apparently fundamental. Inasmuch as the different climatic 
regions of the earth will continue to function in producing dark and light- 
skinned races, and sunny and serious people, distinct races biologically 
will probably remain, although an increasing amount of racial admixture, 
intermarriage, and amalgamation may be expected to take place. 

2. The world is being characterized by an expansion of the individual’s 
sense of social and ethical responsibility. The concept of progress is 
probably marked by this phenomenon more than by any other. Moreover, 
it is only a puny conception of man’s ethical possibilities which would deny 
the continued expansion of man’s sense of social responsibility—to include 
mankind. | 

Individuals here and there are asserting a world sense of ethical re- 
sponsibility. Some have died and others have suffered imprisonment 
rather than submit to narrow racial or religious, or national ideals. 

3. Human civilization is slowly moving toward a world political 
institution superior in strength to the most powerful nations today, and 


"If the reader holds to a polygenic origin of mankind, the point still obtains that 
there is a general trend toward cultural unity. 


468 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


yet jealously guarding the needs of individual nations, both large and 
small. Such a world organization may be built out of the virtues. of 
present-day nations; it probably will not abolish nations, but foster them 
as long as they work for the planetary good. It will undoubtedly do 
away with hypernationalism, provincialism, and chauvinism. It cannot 
function well unless it eliminates the balance of power theory, the 
secret treaty habit, and territorial aggrandizement schemes. It will also 
be necessary that chauvinistic national leaders be supplanted by world- 
minded national leaders, and that the populace be trained in world ideals 
as well as in nationalism. ; 

4. Democratic world leaders alone are certain of permanent social 
esteem. Autocratic world leaders soon feel the stinging whip of public 
opinion. They are able to survive only as long as they appear in the 
cloak of sentimental and “patriotic” nationalists who are “defending” 
their country against subtle and dangerous enemies or else in the guise 
of being “fof the people” and hence democratically-minded. 

Moreover, history throws overwhelming doubt on the possibility of a 
world political structure being built out of autocratic principles with- 
out carrying in itself the elements of decay and self-destruction. Ruler- 
ship from the top down exclusively, bears its own seeds of destruction 
in the prolonged power which it gives the few over the many. Through 
autocracy, even the education of the multitude can be subverted. 

The evidence indicates that not autocracy but aristocracy will exist 
with democracy in world community. The tendency is toward a demo- 
cratic aristocracy, an aristocracy that is being guided by the needs of the 
many, that is not wasting itself in extravagant living, that endeavors to 
stimulate all individuals to reach increasingly higher levels of social 
achievement, and thus create a democracy of social aristocrats, of superior 
men and women with superior social attitudes. 

Industrial democracy is developing as a world value. Neither labor 
nor capital is entitled to full control. One has as its chief goal, capital; 
the other, wages; both these ends are materialistic, and in conflict at times 
with democratic and spiritual values. According to present knowledge, 
an enduring world community will place service values in control, not 
only of labor and of capital, but also of all occupational and professional 
activities of man. Individuals in increasing numbers are striving with 
one another in rendering service. Profitism and speculation are being 
slowly supplanted by the service attitude. A creditable advance has al- 
ready been made in putting the service standard in charge of several pro- 


LEADERSHIP AND WORLD PROGRESS 469 


fessions, such as the ministry, teaching, social work, the judiciary, 
medicine. | 

Unfortunately, however, the service attitude is being profaned; people 
seek public esteem because they are rendering service; the service attitude 
is coming to mean that “I will serve you, if you will serve me in return.” 
Gamblers even operate under the banner of “rendering service” in the 
form of excitement to men who otherwise would be smothered in routine, 
machine-like tasks of daily life. 

5. The world is becoming increasingly spiritual. The trend of evo- 
lution is unmistakably from the dominance of the physical forces to 
control by spiritual forces. The psychic factors in civilization have been 
gradually emerging into positions of control. For decades the need 
has been urgent for the establishment of a universal language, common 
to all mankind. A truly international university would further the evo- 
lution of world community. Clearly, leaders wholly filled by the dynamic 
of genuine Christian love are needed in order that the most spiritual 
world values may be realized in all lands. 

A plan to secure “world team-work’” has been suggested * whereby 
each of the nations annually train 2,000 leaders in politics, science, and 
internationalism ; 1,000 to come from the home country and 200 from each 
of five other countries. In this way there can be an interchange of ideas 
and cooperative programs of world welfare developed. Leaders in world 
progress thus can be trained in all the more important countries. 

A world leader, however, must devote most of his time to educating 
people up to the leader’s levels. Ina democracy there are few progressive 
leaders in public life because voters are not educated to the point of 
supporting progressive persons. “Voters have attitudes and prejudices 
which incline them against the new ideas of the progressive leader.” ® 

Humanitarianism is not enough, for it has no goal outside itself, and 
is apt to become self-centered and professional. Christ’s principle of 
love is humanitarian, but more—its ultimate goal is located outside and 
beyond humanity. Thus it becomes a dynamic force for perpetually 
putting new and sacrificial living into world loyalties. Science has in- 
vented such powerful engines of human destruction that the people of 
the world are not safe until they learn to appreciate the meaning of the 
concept of the world as a group, and on the basis of good will to develop 
habits of appropriate behavior. Interdependence of groups the world 


® Survey, Sept. 15, 1923. 
°J. M. Williams, Principles of Social Psychology (Knopf, 1924), p. 215. 


470 FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


AAA oS AUR ALANS DNS eae NER BRANDI Ea oe 
around has come, and has “caught the world with a group-sufficiency 
philosophy.” An intergroup and world philosophy is needed. To this 
end it makes all the difference in the world whether leaders are habitually 
socialized or not, whether they regularly put the welfare of their followers _ 
ahead of personal gain, whether they are understandingly guided by the 
principles of world welfare and progress. In its last analysis intersocial 
stimulation produces world conscious men and women. 


PRINCIPLES 


1. In the past many would-be world leaders have courted self-glory and 
power. 

2. A few world leaders have sought a better world order without ac- 
cepting personal reward. 

3. World interstimulation and response is a logical phase of social 
evolution. 

4. The personal attainment of world attitudes waits on education and of 
the changing of traditions. 

5. The essential unity of human minds presages a world unity of social 
culture and organization. 

6. The successful establishment of a League or Association of Nations 
requires world thinking on the part of the majority of people in 
the leading countries of the world. 

7. World progress hinges upon the appearance of leaders who can 
synthesize the best social values in both Eastern and Western 
civilizations. 

8. The contradictions shown by a comparison of Orientalism and Occi- 
dentalism are chiefly complements, differences in degree, or else 
superficial. 

9g. The working out of “world values” is one of the next great socio- 
psychological tasks. 

10. The world is being characterized by an expansion of the individual’s 
sense of social responsibility. 


REVIEW QUESTIONS 


. What is meant by “the essential unity of human minds ?” 
. Explain “world community.” 

. What are the leading traits of Western civilization ? 

. Of Eastern civilization ? 


wh #4 


LEADERSHIP AND WORLD PROGRESS 471 


. Compare Eastern and Western ideas concerning the family? 

. Illustrate: The Oriental generalizes and the Occidental particularizes. 

How are some of the differences between Orientalism and Occiden- 
talism chiefly differences in degree? 

. What is meant by “world values?” 

. Distinguish between autocracy, aristocracy, and democracy. 

. Why is humanitariansm not sufficient to guarantee world progress? 


90M Nan 


PROBLEMS 


. What is meant by world progress? 

. Name five leaders of world thought at the present time. 

Why are there so few leaders of world thought? 

Why has the Hague Tribunal not been more effective? 

In what ways is Eastern civilization superior to Western? 

How is Occidentalism superior to Orientalism ? 

. How do “chauvinistic national leaders” hinder world progress? 

. What do you think is the best procedure to follow in order to 
guarantee world peace and progress? 


ONAN wD H 


ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS 


Anesaki, M., The Religious and Social Problems of the Orient (Mac- 
millan, 1923). 

Cooley, C. H., Soctal Organization (Scribners, 1909), Ch. XXXVI. 

Soctal Process (Scribners, 1918), Ch. XXIII. 

Ellwood, C. H., The Social Problem (Macmillan, 1919). 

_ Follett, M. P., The New State (Longmans, Green: 1920), Ch. XXXVI. 

Giddings, F. H., Democracy and Empire (Macmillan, 1900), Ch. XIX. 

———Studies in the Theory of Human Society (Macmillan, 1922), 
ChsfiViary. 

Pillsbury, W. B., Psychology of Nationality and Internationalism (Apple- 
ton, 1919), Ch. X. 





STANDARD WORKS 


Allport, Floyd, Social Psychology (Houghton Mifflin, 1924). 

Cooley, C. H., Human Nature and the Social Order (Scribners, 1922). 

Social Organization (Scribners, 1909). 

Social Process (Scribners, 1918). 

Dewey, John, Human Nature and Conduct (Holt, 1921). 

Ellwood, C. A., Sociology in its Psychological Aspects (Appleton, 1912). 

An Introduction to Social Psychology (Appleton, 1917). 

Edman, Irwin, Human Traits (Houghton Mifflin, 1920). 

Gault, R. H., Social Psychology (Holt, 1923). 

Giddings, F. H., Studies in the Theory of Society (Macmillan, 1922). 

Ginsberg, Morris, The Psychology of Society (Dutton, 1921). 

Howard, George Elliott, Social Psychology (syllabus), University of 
Nebraska, I9QIo. 

McDougall, Wm., An Introduction to Social Psychology (Luce, 1914). 

The Group Mind (Putnam, 1920). 

Park and Burgess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology (University 
of Chicago Press, 1921). 

Paton, Stewart, Human Behavior (Scribners, 1922). 

Ross, E. A., Social Psychology (Macmillan, 1908). 

Social Control (Macmillan, 1910). 

Principles of Sociology (Century, 1920). 

Tarde, Gabriel, Laws of Imitation (Holt, 1903). 

Thomas, W. I., Source Book for Social Origins (Univ. of Chicago 
Press, 1909). 

Trotter, W., Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War (Macmillan, 1918). 

Wallas, Graham, The Great Society (Macmillan, 1914). 

Ward, Lester F., Psychic Factors in Civilization (Ginn, 1906). 

Williams, J. M., The Principles of Social Psychology (Knopf, 1922). 

Wundt, William, Elements of Folk Psychology, trans. by Schaub (Mac- 
millan, 1915). 




















INDEX 


Ability, special, 383, 388 

Accomodation, 210 ff. 

Acculturation, 223 

Achievement, 387, 415, 425, 430 

Acquisitiveness, 54 

Active adaptation, 210 

Adaptation, 210 

Admiration, 15 

Adolescence, 130 

Adornment, 162 

Adventuresome patriotism, 306 

Advertisements, 132 

Agencies of social control, 349 ff. 

Age, traits of, 169, 376 

Agencies of social control, 340ff. 

Aggregation, 244 

Amalgamation, 224 

Americanization, 98, 222 

Angry emotion, 13 

Animals, isolation among, 90 
Communication among, 112 

Anticipation, 362 

Antin, Mary, 262 

Anti-social behavior, 362 

Aptitudes, 7, 382 

Arbitration boards, 204 

Aristotle, 75 

Art, 335, 354 

Assemblies, 246, 268 ff. - 

Assimilation, 2109 ff. 

Assimilation differential, 225 

Association of ideas, 38 

Athletics, 51, 66 

Atmosphere, inventive, 398 

Attention, 26 

Attitude, an, 45 ff., 431 

Autocracy, 181, 203, 419, 443, 452 

Auto-suggestion, 132 


Bacon, Francis, 198 

Baldwin, J. M., 234, 247, 397 

Balked disposition, 20 

Beggars, 361 

Behavior, 11 ff., 26 ff., 36 ff., 45 ff., 65 ff., 
75 ff., 364 

Behavior crusts, 174, 360, 375 

Beliefs, 355 

Bell, Alexander G., 147, 403 

Bergson, 76, 77, 79 

Bernard, L. L., 5, 390, 401 

Bias, 198 


Biological assimilation, 224 
Blackmar and Gillin, 226 
Bliven, Bruce, 442 
Bodenhafer, W. B., 242 
Boaz, Franz, 463 

Bridges, H. J., 220 

Brill, A. A., 20 

Bristol, L. M., 26, 210, 211 
Broken homes, 49 
Browning, 401 

Bryan, W. J., 84 

Bryce, James, 290, 442 
Burgess, Ernest W., 45, 69, 220, 250 
Business, IQ1 


Cape, Emily Palmer, 386, 414 
Carver, Dy Nev607) 157i 275 
Case, Clarence M., 58, 94, 306, 310, 320, 
383, 454 

Castes, 248 
Catt, Carrie Chapman, 298 
Censorship, 333 
Ceremonial controls, 353 
Chapin, F. Stuart, 188, 204, 251 
Change, social, 447 
Character, 70 
Chauvinistic patriotism, 307 
Cheating, 335 
Child, the, 398, 409 
Choosing, 29 
Christ, the, 97, 290, 443, 460 
Christianity, 223, 300, 466 
Civilization, 404, 425, 464, 467 
Clark, Frances E., 414 
Clark, Willis W., 421 
Classes, 249 
Classroom discussion, 204 
Clericalism, 182 
Cliques, 257 
Coe, G. A., 100, 257 
Coginitive nature, 26 ff. 
Collapse of morale, 334 
College athletics, 66 

spirit of, 331 
Combativeness, 56 ff. 
Commercialized amusements, 52 
Commercialized fashions, 154 
Committee meeting, 269 
Communication, 89 ff., 111 ff., 230, 273 
Community, 222 
Community organization, 52 


473 


INDEX 





474 

Community recreation, 231 
Community spirit, 250 b 
Competition, 183, 323 

Complex, inferiority, 409 


Compromise, 214, 449 
Conciliation, 215 
Conduct, 193, 439 
Conferring together, 121 
Conflicts, 103, 197, 313, 324, 454 
Congregate grouping, 244 
Consanguineal love, 18 
Conscience, 70 
Conscious imitation, 142 
Conservatism, 98, 169, 192 
Constitution, a written, 173 
Constructive control, 345 
Contacts, social, 103 ff., 372 
Contagion, mob, 265 
Contrariness, 21 
Control, self, 22 

Group, 172, 330 ff. 

Legal, 351 
Controls, 283 
Control of habit, 41 
Convention diffusion, 177 ff., 
Conversation, I17 
Conversion, 215, 423 
Conway, Martin, 423 
Cooley, “Gi. 65, 1h) 72 TEP craa a3! 

234, 247, 360 
Cooperation, 60, 231, 315, 455 
Counter suggestion, 132 ff. 
Courage, 331 
Crazes, 157 
Criminaloid, 352 
Crisis, 106, 187, 276 
Crowds, 245, 254 ff., 269 
Crown contagion, 256 
Cultural lag, 457 
Culture, 457 
Curiosity, 52, 396 
Custom diffusion, 168, 186 
Customs, 40, 153, 168, 170, 203, 213, 375, 
451 

Cycle, invention, 401 
Cyrus the Great, 395 
Czar, the, 182, 335 


187, 375 


Darrow, Clarence, 318 

Davies, G. R., 

Debates, college, 201 

Degradation, 75 

Democracy, 206, 293, 294, 350, 374, 384, 
435 ff. 

Democratic internationalism, 308 

De-nationalization, 221 

De Reszke, 80 

Desire, 18 ff. 

Destructive habits, 40 

Deviations, 400 


Devine, E. T., 318 

Dewey, John, 29, 35, 54, 346, 436, 453 
Differences, social, 323 
Differentiation, self, 152 

Diffusion, custom, 168 

Direct suggestion, 125 ff. 

Discipline, 22 

Discrimination, 186 ff. 

Discussion, 197 ff., 2690, 376, 437 
Dogmatism, 452 

Downey, June E., 27, 164, 401, 429 
Dreams, 38 

Dress, psychology of, 162 

Dualism, 216 

DuBois, W. E. B., 435 


Eastern civilization, 464 
Economic oligarchy, 452 
Edison, Thomas A., 53 
Edman, Irwin, 174 
Education, 41, 181, 
356, 387 

Efficiency, 425 

Tests, 193 
Egocentrism group, 304 

Occupational, 281 
Egoism, 290, 291, 314 
Ellwood, Charles A., 8, 15, 20, 61, 220, 

235, 290, 304, 420, 464 

Emotional reactions, 13 ff., 230 
Employers, 441 
Endurance, 41I 
England, 449 
Enthusiasm, 256, 420 
Environment, 4 
Eskimo, 36 
Ethnic assimilation, 221 
Evolution, 215, 400, 405, 444, 448 
Ewer, B. C., 52 
Excitement, 153 
Executive leadership, 422 
Experiences, personal, 46, 288 


190, 218, 234, 276, 


Facial gestures, 114 
Faddish patriotism, 305 
Fads, 157, 159 ff. 

Faith in progress, 376 
Fashion imitation, 151 ff., 
Fashion process, the, 156 
Fear, 14, 345, 418 
Federation, 222 

Feeling reactions, 11 ff.. 118, 170, 245, 254 
Finney, R. L., 280 

Flattery, 71, 132 

Focalization, 411 

Folks, Homer, 280 

Follett, Mary P. 204, 230, 241, 269 
Forethought, 413 

Fortune, good, 429° 

Frazer, J. G., 19 


178, 186 


EE a a 


INDEX 


475 





Freedom, margin of, 30 
Freedom of speech, 255, 293 
Freudians, the, 21 


Galsworthy, John, 297 
Galton, Francis, 382 
“Gang” behavior, 257 
Gault, R. H., 134, 177, 281, 447 
Genetic grouping, 244 
Genius, 378, 382 ff. 
Geographic isolation, 92 
George, Lloyd, 296, 449 
George, W. R., 206 
German morale, 336 
Gestures, 113 ff. 
Giddings, F. H., 220, 229, 241, 244, 240, 
288, 295, 302 
God, concept of, 218, 335, 403 
Goddard, Henry H., 189 
Goddard, Harold, 331 
Gossip, 199 
Government, 356, 456 
Gowin, E. B., 411 
Greatness, 430 
Gregariousness, 47 ff. 
Group, 241 
Builders, 424 
Conflict, 313 
Congregate, 244 
Control, 330 ff. 
Control agencies, 340 ff. 
Control products, 359 ff. 
Egotism, 290, 291, 304 
Heritages, 105, 170, 282 
Instinctive, 247 
Loyalty, 302 
Manipulators, 423 
Morale, 330 
Occupational, 279 
Opinion, 288 
Originators, 424 
Prmary, 247 
Priority, 46, 241 
Representatives, 424 
Social, 241 ff. 
Socialization, 231 
Spirit, 3095 
Transmission, 242 
Welfare, 436 


Habitual nature, 34 ff., 124, 168, 218, 230, 


443 
Hague Tribunal, the, 463 
Hall, G. Stanley, 90, 98, 332, 334, 378 
Hamilton, Alexander, 442 
Harding, W. G., 296, 463 
Hart, Hornell, 421 
Hate, 17, 317 
Hauser, Caspar, 90, 242 
Hayes, Edward C., 288 


Healey, William, 3 

Henke, F. G., 172 

Hereditary leisure classes, 163, 180, 282 

Heredity, group, 105, 170, 282 
Individual, 4 

Heterogeneous crowds, 254 

Hobbes, Thomas, 75 

Hobhouse, L. T., 42, 282 

Hocking, W. E., 147, 330, 337 

Holmes, S. J., 320, 372, 383 

Homogeneous crowds, 254 

Hoover, Herbert, 415 

Hope, 345, 419 d 

Howard, George Elliott, 162, 259, 317, 

324 

Human nature, 3 ff. 

Humanity standards, 195, 469 

Hume, David, 47, 71 

Humor, 81 

Hyphenism, 309 

Hypnotism, 125 


Ideals, 444 
Ignorance, 197, 313, 322 
Illiteracy, 96 
Imagination, 27, 132, 230, 394 
Imitation, 124 ff., 141 ff. 
Immediate imitation, 144 
Immigrant, the, 99, 13I, 222 
Impulses, 6, 34 ff. 
Incongruity, 75, 78 ff. 
Indian, the, 454 
Indirect suggestion, 125 ff. 
Individuality, 232, 373 
Industrial democracy, 468 
Conflicts, 324 
Industrial Revolution, 214 
Individualization, 375 
Inferiority complex, 409 
Inhibition, 414 
Initiative, 341, 398 
Inquisitiveness, 52 
Inspiration, 388 
“Instincts,” 7, 35 
Instinctive grouping, 247 
Institutions, 365, 432, 451 
Intellectual stagnation, 451 
Intelligence, 189 
Tests, 383, 388, 412 
Intercollegiate athletics, 51 
Internationalism, 306, 308 
Intersocial stimulation, 3, 283, 391 
Invention, 304 ff., 449 
Material, 119 
Isolation, 89 ff., 135, 322 


James, William, 34 
Jealousy, 16, 17 
Jefferson, Thomas, 442 
Jews, the, 262 


476 INDEX 


Johnson, Alexander, 129, 438 Misfits, social, 385 
Joyful emotion, 13 Mob curves, 264 
. Mobs, 259 
Kant, 75 Modesty, 162 
Keller, Helen, 93 Modification, 398 
Kerensky, 335 Modification of human nature, 8 
Knowlson, T. S., 376 Modjeska, 424 
Kropotkin, 47 Moral equivalents of war, 320 
Morale, 330 ff. 
Lag, cultural, 457 Moral levels, 189 
Lane, Franklin K., 413 Motion pictures, 142 
Language, 115 ff., 171 Motive, 5 
Laughter, 75 ff. Mutation, 383 
Law, 170, 351 
League of Nations, 55, 202, 463 Nation, the, 249 
Leaders, labor, 216 National morale, 332 
Leadership, 97, 255, 260, 272, 4009ff., Nationalism, 94, 303, 307, 314 
428 ff., 435 ff., 447 ff., 462 ff. Native impulses, 7 
Learning, 30 Intelligence, 383 
LeBon, G., 254 Nature, human, 3 ff. 
Lectures, public, 271 Affective, I1 
Legal battles, 201 Necessity, 398 
Librarian, the, 128 Negroes, 322 
Like- mindedness, 241 Neighborhood morale, 331 
Lincoln, Abraham, 147 Neural mechanisms, 6 
Lippman, Walter, 289 New experiences, 376 
Lombroso, 385, 394 Newspapers, 204, 274 
Love, 17, 377 Nicolai, G. F., 58, 317 
Loyalty Night riding mobs, 261 
Race, 94 Nitobe, Inazo, 464 
Group, 302 Non-social behavior, 360 
Luck, belief in, 180 Nullification of expectation, 75 


Lynching, 259 
Occidentalism, 464 


Maclver, R. M., 121, 250 Occupational controls, 283 
Mackenzie, J. S., 316 Occupational groups, 279 
Madonna patterns, 354 Occupational psychology, 45 
Manias, 264 Odinard theory, 386 
Manipulator, group, 423 Ogburn, W. G., 198, 390, 457 
Manners, 179 Oligarchy, economic, 452 
Manufacturers, 441 Open forums, 204, 271 
Marginal uniqueness, 371, 411 Opinion, public, 349 

Martin, E. D., 257 Opinions, 46 

Mason, Otis T., 394 Group, 288 

Mass movements, 224 Opposition, 202 

Maternal love, 18 Opulence, 410 

McDougall, William, 7, 46, 53, 134, 259 Organizing ability, 415 
Mead, G. H., 116 Orgies, 264 

Measuring leadership, 421 Orientalism, 464 
Mechanisms, 4, 38, 77, III, 243 Origin of inventions, 397 
Mediate imitation, 144 Original human nature, 4, III 
Mental defectives, 360 Originality, 301, 376 
Mental duels, 201 Outlawing war, 34 

Mental reactions, 372, 400 ff. Ownership of property, 96 
Migration, 374, 448 Governmental, 456 
Militarism, 66, 317, 375 

Miller, H. A., 320 Pacifist attitude, 59, 306 
Minister, a, 422 Paderewski, 80 

Mirrored nature, 65 ff. Panics, 263 


Mirthful nature, 75 Pantomimic gestures, 114 


INDEX 


477 





Panunzio, C. M., 
Parental attitude, ‘he 48 ff., 363, 373 


Park and Burgess, 8°" 80) 103) ;atl, 218, 


220, 224, 235, 372 
Parker, Cornelia, S., 95 
Participation, 223 
Participation crowds, 259 
Partisanship, 200 
Passive adaptation, 210 
Patriotism, 303 ff 
Penology, 71 
Penrose, Boies, 442 
Person, the, 106, 234 
Personal socialization, 232 
Personality, 420, 428, 439 

Socially reflected, 35 
Persuasion, 289 
Personal beliefs, 335, 355 
Personal experiences, 46, 288 
Philosophy, 300, 470 
Physiological isolation, 92 
Pioneering, 92, 212 
Pity, 16 
Platform discussion, 204 
Plato, 12 
Platt, Charles, 35 
Play attitude, 50 ff. 
Pleasurable feeling, 12 ff. 
Pogroms, 158, 261 
Points of view, 288 
Polarization, 430 
Political campaign, 201 
Politics, 361, 452 
Prejudice, 129, 198, 313, 321 
Prestige, 136, 428 ff. 
Primary groups, 247 
Prisoner, isolation of, 92 
Problem-solving, 395 
Professions, the, 249, 284, 285 
Professional promoters, 155 
Professional patriotism, 305 
Progress, 121, 154, 174, 457, 462 
Progressiveness, 137 
Proletariat, 324 
Promoters, professional, 155 
Propaganda, 2098 
Property, 56, 96 
Provincial patriotism, 307 
Prussianization, 220, 418 
Psychoanalysis, 21 
Psychology of dress, 162 
Public opinion, 289, 349 
Publicity, 350 
Publics, 246, 273 ff. 
Pugnacious patriotism, 304, 314 
Pulpit discussion, 204 


Race loyalty, 94 
Race prejudice, 321 
Race riots, 262 


Radical movements, 55 

Radicalism, 98, 192, 298 

Radio public, 295 

Rainwater, C. E., 250 

Rational discipline, 22 

Rational discrimination, 192, 212 

Ravage, M. E., 425 

Reasoning, 29 

Recreation, 231 

Reflected attitudes, 65 ff. 

Reflective leadership, 423 

Reflection, 137 

Regression, 289 

Religion, 94, 171, 188, 309, 324, 332, 355, 
452 

Remembering, 28 ff. 

Repartee, 81 

Repressed feelings, 19, 21 

Repressed control, 343 

Reputability, 153 

Research, 375 

Respect, 15 

Reuter, E. B., 226, 3590 

Revolution, 450 

Revenge, 17 

Revival meetings, 257 

Ridicule, 81 

Ritual, 171 

Rivalrous attitude, 60 

Riversa. Wall Ree107 

Robinson, J. H., 190 

Romantic love, 18 

Roosevelt, Theodore, 131 

Ross, Edward A., 26, 47, 68, 134, 145, 
156, 177, 190, 206, 210, 229, 319, 325, 
352, 375 


Salesmanship, 200 
School vacations, 173 
Schopenhauer, 75 
Science, 188 
Pants attitude, 42, 54, 191, 200, 293, 
aed 

Education, 375 

Social control, 365 
Secret societies, 93 
Sectional conflicts, 325 
Sects, 248 
Self-consciousness, social, 249 
Self control, 22, 235 
Self differentiation, 152 
Self-made persons, 243 
Self respect, 68 ff 
Semple, Ellen C., 210, 244 
Sentiments, 15 ff. 
Sex attitude, the, 48 
Sexes, the, 71, 136, 377, 384 
Shame, I 
Shibboleths, 132 
Sidis, Boris, 76, 79, 80, 125, 134, 144 


478 INDEX 


Sighele, 273 
Simmel, Georg, I5I, 214 
“Slanguage,” 116 
Slavery, 13, 409 
Slogans, 132 
Small, A. W., 317 
Smith, William C., 224 
Snedden, David, 273 
Soares, T. G., 235 
Social attitudes, 46 
Barriers, 97 
Behavior, 363 
Changes, 98, 447 ff. 
Consciousness, 233 
Contacts, 103 ff., 372 
Groups, 241 
Justice, 344 
Leadership, 418 
Mirror self, 66 ff. 
Misfits, 385 
Nature, 45 
Religion, 355 
Self-consciousness, 249 
Stimulation, 103ff., 273 
Structures, 178 
Suggestion, 134 
Value, 45, 390 
Vision, 120 
Socialized attitude, 60 
Socialized imagining, 28 
Socialized personality, 234 
Socialized recitation, 206, 271 
Socially reflected attitudes, 65 ff. 
Socially reflected personality, 35 
Socialism, 362 
Sociality, 233 
Socialization, 207, 229 ff., 321 
Society, 448 
Solitude, 99 
Spain, 452 
Special aptitudes, 7, 382, 387 
Spectacular, the, 153 
Spectator crowds, 259 
Speech, freedom of, 255, 293 
Spencer, Herbert, 76 
Spiritual values, 469 
Spurious mirthful attitudes, 77 
Stagnant behavior, 360, 451 
Standards, 194, 364 
State socialism, 362 
States, 248 
Steam engine, 399 
Steiner, E. A., 220 
Stimulation, intersocial, 3, 103 ff., 386 
Stimuli, 34 
Stone, Melville E., 322 
Subconscious, 379 
Subordination, 213 
Success, 420 
Suggestibility, 134 ff., 255 


Suggestion, 124 ff, 
Auto-, 132 
Unintended, 81 
Direct, 125 ff. 
Indirect, 126 ff. 
Counter, 132 
Social, 134 

Sully, 76 

Sumner, W. G., 170 

Superiority, 75 
Complex, 410 

Superstitions, 180 

Symbolism, 183 

Sympathy, 14, 15, 230 


Taft, W. H., 84 

Talent, 382 ff. 

Taleipe77)100 

Tammany, 436 

Tannenbaum, Frank, 92, 418, 419 

Tarde, Gabriel, 141, 145, 152, 201, 248, 
274 

Teaching, 107, 120, 127 

Temperament, 77, 96, 135 

Temporary grouping, 245 

Theological discussion, 201 

Thinking, 37, 279 

Thomas, W. L., 19, 45, 46, 61, 106, 428, 


443 
Thorndike, E. L., 104, 372 
Toleration, 212 
Tones of psychic nature, 11 ff 
Toynbee, Arnold, 147 
Traditions, 288 
Training, 387 
Transformations, 400 
Transmutations, 210 
Trattner, E. R., 290 
Travel, 374 
Tribalism, 304 


Unconscious imitation, 141 ff. 
Uniqueness, marginal, 371, 411 


Vacations, 173 

Value, social, 45, 205, 390, 467 
Vanity, 71 

Veblen, Thorstein, 30, 163, 180 
Versatility, 415 

Violence, 453 

Vocal language, II5 
Vocational guidance, 374, 390 


Wallas, Graham, 105, 170, 190, 205, 271 

War, 316, 325, 330, 336 

Ward, Lester F., 18, 19, 211, 246, 346, 
382, 386 

Washington, Booker T., 44 

Watson, J. B., 115 

Weeks, A. D., 53 


INDEX 


Wells, H. G., 100 

Western civilization, 425, 464 

Whistling, 116 

Williams, J. M., 55, 60, 281, 285, 318, 

_ 419, 450, 455, 469 

Williams, Whiting, 280, 281 

Wilson, Woodrow, 121, 203, 292, 320, 326, 
334 

Wishes, the, 19 

Wissler, Clark, 323, 454, 463 

Wit, 81 

Witchcraft, 263 


479 


Wolfe, A. B., 54 

Woman and dress, 163 
Mental ability of, 377, 304 

Woodworth, R. S., 4, 29, 41 

Work, 50 

Workmanship, instinct of, 30 
Community, 468 

World loyalties, 308 
Progress, 462 
Values, 467 


Zangwill, Israel, 221 





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